Yes, I was just thinking about this. From a price discrimination perspective, there's a lot to be said for the current way of selling and pricing ONEs: High-value customers buy tickets originating in their home country. Low-value customers buy tickets originating in other countries -- but to prove they're low-value customers, must figure out the rules, jump through the hoops, and ultimately present themselves in the other countries.

If there were enough low-value customers, this might be somethine OneWorld didn't mind. But I think the situation gets "worse," from their perspective, in that some portion of the low-value customers look like bad customers to OneWorld -- use all 20 segments (or more, before that rule was put in place); get as much mileage out of the tickets as is possible; etc.

I can see how this would lead the decision-makers to say "who needs them?" as to the sorts of customers who will go to CAI to complete a ONE purchase. Relative to the high-value ONE purchasers, low-value folks are surely less desirable customers -- and it's easily to fail to focus on the question that ultimately should be at issue. i.e. whether the low-value customers are better than nothing (better than letting the seats sit vacant).

There's more than simple economics at work here - the OWE rules have plenty of caveats that could easily be applied to keep the likes of me from buying a ticket in Egypt. For instance, there's a paragraph near the end that says you have to pay for your ticket in local currency, else you pay the higher rate for the currency you use. Check it out. Despite my ticket saying "EGP" I clearly paid with a U.S. credit card, and BA could easily have said "no, that's not allowed."

One could guess that due to the distribution of proceeds from the sale/use of an OWE, BA found it in their interest to maintain that price structure as long as they did. CAI staff probably did too, in spite of people here feeling sorry for them having to write all those tickets (did someone say two a day?) I'd be surprised if any remote station like CAI doesn't get mucho brownie points for generating revenue and keeping the bus to LHR filled, and two extra bottoms every day, often in a premium cabin, wouldn't hurt their reputation at all.

What matter that it's an American or Egyptian butt in that seat? BA gets the revenue, and however it's split up, chances are they get to keep it in their account for up to twelve months before divvying it up.

Chances are it was really AA that instigated the price increase, since they'd get a little of that business back, perhaps confirmed by their anxiousness to hurry the increase.

Has anyone tried Iberia? They have an office also at CAI airport and their web site has the fax number. Haven't called them as I don't have any real need for a ticket right now (bought mine in early December), but please share your experience if you have one.

I actually spent four days in Cairo . Does donating money to the local casino contribute monetarily towards the local economy?

As a matter of fact, Cathay Pacific has an office (GSA) in Cairo. They share office space with American Airlines (although AA has a lot more space). I was told that EMECO is the GSA for a number of airlines in Egypt.

Does anyone know if CX fares ex-CAI have also gone up?

My TA tells me that there´s been a rush of people trying to get DONEs and AONEs issued before the price rises. Also the increases arent limited to BA: IB and AA plan to follow suit.

Does anyone have a CAI based TA they can recommend?

Paying in local currency means that you pay whatever the amount is in EGP. You can use any creditcard you wish whether it is issued in UK, US or Timbaktu.

BA in Cairo , I know converts the amount paid in EGP on the day of ticket issue to USD so that effectively locks your Rate of Exchange should the EGP crash the next day!

AA on the other hand, just charges you in EGP as do the hotels. Of course, at the hotels for example, they don't like you paying for the bill in local cash! I wonder if one can try paying for a RTW in local cash?

any info how IB in CAI handle that, and if I can order a ticket I have already reserved in AMADEUS ?

You may well be right, but that's nothing like what the words in the rules say, and there would be no reason for the paragraph. It's pretty obvious that they were intended provide a tool to keep first-world pax from buying tickets at 3rd-world prices.

BA will accept payment for OWEs *only* by credit card! I tried paying for a DONE4 with Egyptian cash, when that didn't work I offered to pay with hard currency or a local bankers draft in hard currency. No deal!

I finally got a travel agent to do the ticket through AA and in local cash.

IB didn't want to handle the ticket as I was only doing one segment with them.

I think you are too broadly interpreting the rule section to which you are referring. I believe this section has to do with where the payment is made, not the type of currency that is involved. If you pay for the ticket in Egypt then you pay in EGP. This is illustrated in the example given in the rules for the HKG origination, "paid for in the U.S.". The rules specify what is to be done if the ticket is paid for in a different countries currency. Your ticket was paid in EGP and it says so on your ticket.

Yes, your credit card may be charged in another currency but you are actually making the payment in Egypt, not the U.S. The charging in another currency is a choice of the individual airline issuing the ticket. They are doing a currency translation but taking the payment in the country of origin (in this case Egypt). The actual reason for the currency translation in these cases was to lock in the price due to the falling EGP exchange rates. I wonder if they would have done this translation if the exchange rates were going the other way?

Might be a stupid question but have they already published the new OWE fares ex/CAI somewhere?

I just got an e-mail from AA in CAI that they haven't received the memo yet. So for now, the old prices might still be valid.

For sure they don't have the new ones yet.

Does anyone know if AA would be prepared to issue an ex CAI ticket if the itin includes no segments flown on AA?

Can EMECO actually price the itinerary? I thought the pricing is actually done by the AA Dublin rate desk and EMECO simply uses the (stored) fare while issuing the ticket.

Hmm, good question-- an e-mail I got from Emeco this morning echoed the above-- that there is still time to get in at the old prices-- she seemed pretty confident.