I thought that I read somewhere that the airline with the 1st flight segment is the airline to use for booking and issuing the OWE ticket. Is this true ? It seems that CX may be less strict with applying the rules than say BA/AA/QF. I would prefer to start a South African OWE in Capetown rather than Jo'burg, but CX only flies to JNB. Thanks.

all airlines can make the booking, as long as they have an office in the starting country or N.America when it has to be issued.

the ticket stock (i.e. the first 3 digit of the ticket number, and hence the officiall issuer) will be your first intercontinental long haul carrier. but it does not necessarily have to be one who does the booking and fare approval

When booking and ticketing through a travel agency they may validate the ticket on whichever airline offers them more commission or bonus.
I had a problem with a UA/SQ RTW, which had been validated on SQ even though all flights were UA except for the last two. When UA misconnected in Chicago they would not put us on the next flight with LH, without getting the ticket endorsed by SQ. This was not possible due to the time involved, and we had to wait 20 hours for the next UA flight.
Next time I'll insist on the ticket being validated on the airline where I believe I may want to make a change or that there is more chance of a problem.

With the above situation, you wouldn't have been able to travel on LH anyway because it is a special fare restricted to only UNITED and SINGAPORE AIRLINES. If it had been a STAR ALLIANCE RTW ticket, no endorsement is required as all STAR ALLIANCE members do not need endorsements when travelling on another member's flight. In the case of the UA/SQ ticket, the UA staff obviously had no idea what to do in this case and just wanted to brush you off. If a reissue had been required, note:BOTH UA or SQ can do the job again, irrespective on who issued the original ticket.

Some airlines require the agency to ticket on the first outbound flight. ie in the case of Singapore Airlines for all flights ex-SIN, irrespective. It is not necessary based on 'commission' issues.

Back to headinthecloud's questions: It seems that CX may be less strict with applying the rules than say BA/AA/QF. I would prefer to start a South African OWE in Capetown rather than Jo'burg, but CX only flies to JNB. Thanks.

CX can issue the ticket for originating in either city. You'd just have to be specific as to where you'd like to have your ticket issued.

If you wish to start an OWE in CPT and want to go Africa-Asia, why not have the first leg of your RTW be CPT-JNB on BA? You could then connect with the CX JNB-HKG flight.

[This message has been edited by kanebear (edited 01-07-2002).]

Isn't it usually the first "over-the-water" flight rather then just the first outbound flight?

It "can" be anything if the person at the airline reservation office are willing.

AA have issued me a Oneworld RTW starting on BA with QF as the first intercontinental sector. Similarly AA were happy to have my travel agent in CPT issue a ticket on AA stock with the first segment CPT-LHR on BA. BA had already applied a price rise that AA had not yet enacted and AA were OK with having it issued on their stock at the lower price

Thanks for the opinions. My decision is whether to go to Australia or Asia as the 1st intercontinental segment. My concern is that the CX flight leaves early in the afternoon while the QF flight leaves about 6 hours later. My problem not yours.

Donno the exact rule, but I am sure if you are not using that airline for "across the water" flight, they will not take the hassle to do the ticketing.

I tried one time to do it with BA since they don't care a lot about backtracking within N.A (AA does, although there is not such restriction so I am OK eventually), they don't do it since all the trans-ocean flight are AA and CX.

My DONEW3 was booked with AA's RTW desk, and it had zero AA segments. I'm sure any OW airlines would gladly book you, they do earn commission for selling the tickets. Please, RTW are revenue tickets, they're not doing you a favour.

Unless they went back to it, AA decided in November that they would no longer book a RTW without a long-haul AA segment