What happens in the event of a paid and ticketed xONEx, obviously valid when first issued, becoming invalid through no fault of our own?

For example, a direct flight originally taking one sector is dropped months later (but before we fly it), so it now takes two sectors to fly the city pair as shown on the coupon.

I believe in that case the airline on which the flight was and which cancelled it has to accomodate you (routing you as required without reissue). Although there seems to be a differnece here between booked flight v. open segment - ie open segment is not entitled to accomodation as above whereas booked flight is.

You are rerouted for free except under 2 conditions: if open-dated, no reroute (this is the disadvantage of using open-dated tickets), and if downgrade due to dropping F/J on the city-pair, no reroute (you get a downgrade without compensation, but can switch to a different flight number or date if your class is sometimes offered).

alect, number_6, thank you both. The "free" rerouting also includes a "free" extra segment? I mean, if the ticket, as originally issued had 20 segments, and now the only way to get from A to B is via C, taking the total number of segments to 21 (or to more than 4 in a continent),... will they still acomodate me?

Yes, because you are not beign reticketed, so the extra segment issue will not come-up. Don't mention it and you'll be fine. Even if you do mention it, you'll probably be fine.

Remember, the key word here is INVOLUNTARY.

AA did some "involuntary" schedule changes on the flights I was booked on for my AONE3 ex-Canada (the North American segments were before my "first international over the water" segment, and the fare rules do not allow changes to those flights)and the new times were not convienent for me.

I called CX (who issued my ticket) who agreed to rebook me on flights that were "convinient" for me, and they told me to go to their airport ticket office at YVR. All they did was pull the affected flight coupons and replaced them with new flight coupons for the sectors in question (there was no need to re-issue the ticket). If I remember correctly, the new flight coupons had "INVOL" printed somewhere on them.

Anything that is INVOLUNTARY can allow fare rules/conditions to be overrided.

So, if you are on a flight (one segment) that was cancelled (INVOLUNTARILY, not by you), and you are required to take two flights (two segments) to reach your destination, the airline should pull the affected flight coupon and "exchange" it for "two flight coupons" (with INVOL printed on them).

Or in the worse case, they can issue you a FIM (i.e. the airline has already pulled your flight coupon and you are in the gate area, and the airline cannot find your original flight coupon) and even accomodate you on another carrier!

Can I ask a related question?
I am currently in the middle of a DONE4 and will be stopping for 4 months in LNK where I arrive in two weeks. The ticket was issued by a TA in Oz and is not open-dated. Looking at the AA website it seems that AA are ceasing all flight to/from LNK in mid-sept, so clearly my LNK-ORD in Dec is not viable with AA.
My question is this: Should I contact AA direct when I arrive in Lincoln, or should I ask my TA in Oz to fix it. I assume that AA will have to provide me with alternative carrier to ORD and I will need a flight coupon for this, so my TA in Oz may not be much help.
Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks,

Medicus

Hi, interesting point. I would guess that the TA would refer you to the carrier whose ticket stock it is issued on. I have no idea but might guess at QF for your starting point. I would suggest that you try the issuing carrier first and then AA. Also, why wait until nothing can be done, ask now.

It would be useful to arm yourself with the following
1. did you leave a contact number in the booking that the carrier can reasonably be expected to contact you on to tell you of the rearrangements
2. where is the nearest available airport that AA or babyAA will serve that might be an alternative and how could you get there
3. does the lost segment matter to you in terms of miles and status points, you may be able to claim for some FFPs as this is invol reroute
4. ask if they will ground transport you (based on 2) or alternative carrier you, if booked well ahead then it might be cheaper to do it yourself and try and claim the money back from AA now.

Good luck

Thanks for the advice Spotwelder. I'll see how I get on...

I agree with all the above. I'm in the middle of an AOWE3 issued and begun in CAI. I have 8 NA segments (the "normal" six, plus two additional ones which you are allowed to purchase if bought outside Area 1) which includes two journeys which AA have cancelled: GCM-TPA & TPA-SAN. I had no difficulty in changing this to GCM-MIA-TPA & TPA-ORD-SAN, a total of 10 NA segments. No extra charge. Indeed, as my ticket history was already on the AA computer, I didn't need to do anything other than turn up at the check-in desk and use my original coupons. (I took the precaution of speaking to the AA RTW desk first.)

Had my ticket been open-dated I couldn't have done this. One of our brethren, not too far from Hong Kong, is always chastising us for avoiding open-dated tickets. This is one example where they're not a good idea.

Contact AA. Unless you prefer otherwise, they'll most likely just rebook you on UA* (united express) which is still operating that route. And in that case don't be too alerted if they just ask you to show up at the UA* counter with your current ticket--given that they pulled out completely from the market, they probably have a blanket agreement in place with the other carriers to accept AA tickets against a reservation no questions asked (although I would call UA to ensure that everything looks OK in their system, just in case the AA rep forgot to do something like manually entering the ticket number and that will cause the reservation to auto-cancel).