Over in AA I asked the same question a while ago, since I was planning a fairly major rewrite of a trip on AA paper and wondered where best to have it done. The purpose of this post is not necessarily to start the topic here but to call your attention to the AA thread - I don't know how to simply insert a link to it, so maybe the mods can. I've only gotten one reply, but y'all should read it before showing up at an AA ato.

LAX is about the best that AA has, so given that you are from LAX this would be a good choice. Otherwise the NYC CTO by Grand Central is best. None are great and it mostly depends on the agent that you get. My own strategy with complicated rewrites is to use CX, go to a CX counter during another trip and have them take the details and fax a copy of the ticket to HKG, then do the rewrite the next day in HKG airport by CX after they have had a day to research it. Usually gets done within 10 minutes this way with very gracious service.

This is the link to the thread.

I have an interesting saga with an attempt to reissue a RTW, issued by AA in Cairo. Almost all of my remaining flights are on CX, so I decided it made sense to have CX reissue the ticket.

LAX
- Arrived 3 hours before flight
- Asked them to send relevant info to Cathay in HKG so that on arrival the ticket would be ready to reissue
- Told that only AA could do reticketing
- Then said they would call the one and only OneWorld ticket expert at LAX and reissue there
- Took my ticket and told me they would bring it to me on the plane
- received many contradictory messages as to my ticket, most of which were that my ticket would be sent on the 2am flight to HKG (I was on the midnight flight)
- in the end, a CX agent brought it to me just before doors closed with nothing done

HKG
- met on arrival; told they knew they were to reissue my ticket and to go to the Wing as the ticketing office was not yet open
- spoke to person in Wing. She took relevant coupon books as well as all my pricing info from Cairo.
- She returned, and asked me for the portion of ticket on which I am traveling today.
- She returned with the ticket and said I lacked the receipts for the booklets on which I had finished travel. Without them, the ticket could not be reissued.

So I guess that in the end it was my fault that the ticket didn't get reissued - but I marvel at the number of hours it took them to see that I had 3 of the booklet receipts rather than five.

You must have the entire ticket for any re-issue, otherwise they cannot validate that the reissue is in compliance with the rules (you could be re-entering a continent that you had already visited, for example!). Maybe they were trying to find a way to pull up an electronic image of your ticket -- something that is normally possible for AA tickets issued in the US, but maybe not for those issued in Cairo. I suspect you were the victim of very fine service rather than poor service, but of course they didn't communicate what they had tried to do and I can only speculate.

My ticket has now been reissued - with a tip of the hat to Emeco in Cairo.

Learning from my abortive CX experience in LAX and HKG, including my own contribution to that failure, I wrote to Emeco who had issued my ticket originally. I gave them my desired changes, which they sent on to AA in Dublin for repricing. The change came out $75 (standard reissue fee) plus $9. I was given a new PNR, and told that I could go to an airport and that the repricing mask was ready.

I was in Charlotte yesterday, so with some fear and trepidation went to the AA counter. There were only 2 agents - one in the ticket/international line, and one at the first class line. My agent told me if the reissue were difficult, she would have to ask me to wait til all people were checked in for their flights.

Well - what do you know! The ticket was reissued within 1 minute. She and I both looked at each other in joy and disbelief.

That's a pretty amazing story, and a great lesson on the proper way to deal with Emeco-issued tickets. Getting one re-issued at LAX without having Emeco grease the ways was very painful.

I considered getting Emeco involved but imagined I'd have to Fedex the tickets to them as part of the process.

BTW, one minor agony was that mine was 19 segments, and the AA machine would only spit out 16 at a time. Did you have to deal with that too?

That wasn't an issue for me, as I have already used about 2/3 of my segments.

Congratulations! Great to hear about successful reissues, thanks for sharing.

P.S. What is a little disconcerting to a novice, however, is to read how an Emeco+Dublin reissue can run so smoothly and another, from the same people, can be such a nightmare. Some wait, indeed have to wait, to be in a major CTO/ATO, send coupons in, worry and run like headless chickens, others, like the OP, email Emeco and then, in 1 minute, pickup the reissued ticket at their local, minor (no offence meant), airport. Is Emeco getting better at this? Luck of the draw? Murphy on holidays? SanDiego1K did everything right and the others less so? ... just thinking aloud.

The moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter was aligned with Mars.

It's the luck of the draw based on more factors than better training at the CTO.

I had EMECO do a reissue for me while in Cairo back in February before I started the ticket (kept first international flight the same) and it was all done with ease. I went directly to their office from the airport and they took care of it from there. The ticket was delivered to my hotel the next day. As a funny aside, it was a cash purchase and the reissue entitled me to a refund of an extra Asia segment I had originally needed. They gave me the refund in cash minus the change fee. You can imagine how thick a wad of cash $400 worth of Egyptian Pounds is!

I have had Emeco tickets re-issued at HKG CTO, HKG ATO (twice) & BA T4 transit desk, in each case without any pre-warning. The HKG ATO is superb: 20-25 minutes each time, with the added advantge that you can either sit near the desk and watch all the CX cabin crew clocking in or go through to the lounge and they'll bring the ticket through for you. The HKG CTO was perfectly competent, but VERY slow - around 90 mins to do the reissue (essentially due to the tax calculation - my latest Emeco ticket has this much more explicitly). BA T4 transit desk was hard work: it took ages to explain and it took them a couple of hours to do (which, fortunately, I was able to spend in the Concorde Room before my next flight), plus they insisted on charging me GBP25 in addition to the US$75 change fee.

Hmmm, wonder if Singapore would mind re-issuing a OneWorld ticket...

Should also add that both of AA's NYC CTOs have reticketed OWEs for me and the process has been very smooth. Last time, they even FedEx'd the ticket to me the next day. On the other hand, trying to get it done at LGA turned into a 6 hour ordeal.