One potential problem to watch out for with open dated tickets from my expereince:

If you have an open dated coupon A to B and oneworld airlines stop flying A to B you need to reroute (and pay the fee for this).
Same if you have a coupon with a date, want to change and no airline is flying that sector (any more)
If you have a dated coupon and because of a schedule change nobody is flying any more you are protected.

I'm surprised at the 'no charge for date changes' comments - I haven't flown xONEx for several years but before that was active for a decade or so, over which period the airlines (all?) went from smiling at the valued first-class passenger - all but having full bar service at the check-in counter - to considering us as leeches. Never a charge for a date change, but they all seemed to want around USD150 as a "standing in front of my counter" charge. At least once AA refused to sticker a paper coupon for a simple date change and charged for a 'ticket reissue' fee.

In my experience these tickets are so rarely seen at most stations that they fall into some sort of "OMG" category with the airline people. And even with personnel who know something about them, consistency between Oneworld airlines over the provisions and how-tos associated with the tickets has never been a strong suit. [/irony.]

The rules were amended a couple of years ago to include a line about "service charges" being at the discretion of the airlines. Fuel > flame, especially with certain members that have Union Jacks and/or kangaroos in their livery. Getting nickeled and dimed on premium RTW tickets costing thousands of dollars/pounds really sucks, but if one has the mind set of airline accountants, we're soft targets. Who're you gonna complain to?

This is why it is good, at present at least (who knows the future), to ticket with an airline that has the star bangled banner in its livery;) - no service charges

I'm missing something here, as I'm not immediately recalling the stars on AA's current livery. [Are you perhaps thinking about USAirways, with the stars and stripes tail?] If you're talking about LAN, then I have to sharply disagree regarding this ticketing recommendation.

Oops -there I go again:o
assuming evey American business, of whatever nature, displays the stars & stripes somewhere

Star-Spangled Banner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner
not to be confused with The Bangles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bangles :D

Is the party coming to an end?
 

Been a bit obsessive about the ex-KRT prices lately, and just did my regular check of the DONE4 price using KVS

I inadvertently left the airline as QF (from some earlier query)

Gulp: DONE4 showing as SDG44,123 (up from SDG14,700):td::td::td:
Checked all eleven OW airlines

QF, S7 and CX showing SDG44,123
All the others showing SDG14,700 still

Anyone else seeing this?
Does it mean the party is coming to an end?

OW does like to change xONEx fares on the first of a month

So is there still a way to book this?

I really hope not. I just got my invitation and needed to wait a few more days so that I could book it with dummy dates instead of an open booking.

I'm a little puzzled -- are you saying that dated or open doesn't matter, if an airline stops flying one must pay the reroute fee and any fare increase, but with a dated coupon you're protected from schedule changes? From the rest of your pot I thought you were saying the opposite, that dated coupons provide protection, but the bolded text says it's the same either way.

How long ago was this? Years ago, AA had no charges at all for issuing tickets, but more recently started charging everyone except executive platinum members a fee. It doesn't matter if you're buying a $98 fare or a $12,000 one, or a free (award) ticket.

In my limited experience with recent paper tickets they've been no problem. Last year I was issued one by accident and went to the airport to exchange it for an e-ticket well in advance of my trip (just to make it easier if anything needed to be changed) and it was no problem.

The other way to look at it is that some RTW fares are still excellent bargains (not ex-US, sadly) so who cares about a $35 fee or whatever for (re)issuing a ticket?

Well, EF still has the same fare:

Results from ExpertFlyer.com

I flew one end-on-end after another for ten years ending about 5 years ago (with a nice SQ 77W biz-class return (originating SGN) home, since despite having AA exec plat that year I couldn't find a way to do it cheaper) and came to expect that anything I did with my AA-issued ticket would cost me $150. If you were flying AONEx's in the same time frame and had a different experience, good on you.

Those AA charges always came at the hands of LAX or ONT airport staff, so perhaps it was a locality thing. One time out of ANC (where I believe AS handled them) I got away with a voluntary reroute for free.

I do hope your optimism re KRT pricing has merit, but I do believe the cheap ride is over.
[/QUOTE]

Just an FYI...

I had an ex-KRT itinerary setup and priced in CAD (~$4.5k), which was confirmed by a Canadian travel agent, however when they went to ticket it the following morning the price had gone up to ~$12.5k. The TA called AA, who said that they were no longer honoring those prices and that there would be no exceptions.

So if anybody manages to secure a RTW ex-KRT going forward, post here!

$150 to re-issue a ticket? I don't understand that, especially as it's free for executive platinums. That wasn't a re-route fee, right? You were just making date changes? Also, did you try calling the EXP desk?