E-tickets
 

Hi, Ihad to have my rtw tickets re-issued due to AA schedule changes but for the paper tickets_ I was given E-tickets just my it - I have used E- tickets but never for rtw so I am wondering if anyone has used e-tickets for their rtw?
I will flying on AA, Qantas, BA and Cathy Pacific.
Thanks in advance, sara

I was just about to post, complaining about oneworld's endless marketing babble over e-tickets, while they are in fact not available on any inter-airline routes I am familiar with (see www.oneworld.com for recent gloating) . So far neither CX nor BA sell e-tickets ex Europe or Asia span two or more carriers, but reading your post I see that at least AA is doing it now. Maybe the rest of the world is behind a step or two here.
As for the OP question: e-tickets are cool. You don't have to carry any ticket around and all the information is in the computer. My experience with single airline e-tkts is that when you make changes the airline's hotline people are better informed about the ticket and the conditions it carries, they actually 'see' the ticket on their computer screen, so no need to provide copies per fax not to mention stop by an airline office. Very convenient.

I have had/used E-tickets twice so far - AONE4 (AA/BA/CX/QF) and DONE3 (AA/BA/CX). I was worried at first, but never had a problem.

Guess they are here to stay! :)

AA has been issuing e-tickets on participating Oneworld carriers for many months now (at least 6). I think only QF/BA/CX/AA are participating, know for a fact IB is now (had to get paper ticket due to one IB sector). While e-tickets are wonderful, be sure to keep your e-ticket receipt (usually ticket stock but labeled as a receipt). If your e-ticket cannot be found in the computer -- not a theoretical risk, this has happened twice to me -- that receipt is worth its weight in gold. Knowing your PNR number is not enough; finding your PNR in the res system is not enough; you won't fly without that e-ticket receipt or knowing your ticket number by heart. So my experience is that you still have a piece of paper which you must guard as if it were your ticket, it is just a 1% chance that you will need to show it at the airport instead of 100% for a normal paper ticket. When my e-ticket was not found the airline's attitude was that it was my problem and I had to prove that I really had an e-ticket in their computer; very eye-opening when it first happenend, now I am prepared and it is not a problem. BTW my e-ticket was "missing" because someone had altered the spelling of my surname, for no good reason, making the ticket "lost"; it was found only by using the ticket number which was on the receipt.

AA has e-ticket arrangements with all the OW carriers. See this AA press release for details etc. -

https://www.aa.com/content/amrcorp/p..._eticket.jhtml

Does this mean the end of OPEN DATED tickets?

Because with every date change, (whether adding a date or changing a date, not the routing) AA must reissue the entire ticket! And would they then count this as a REISSUE and charge us $75?

But the press release also states that not all destination are covered, perhaps 90% within several months. And what happens if you want to go where e-ticketing is not available?

Have your travel agent (yourself) issue a paper ticket and pay the "fee" AA charges for E-tickets, or better yet issue the paper ticket through a carrier that dosen't charge for paper tickets?

(If you're going to change your date many times, I guess it would be cheaper to pay extra for a paper ticket in the long run?)

Related post: (AA's terrible E-ticket receipt format)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3091483

I don't think it's anything to do with "destinations" - rather, it's which OW airlines have interline e-ticketing with the other OW airlines.

If you get your ticket from AA, provided you're only flying OW airlines, it will be electronic, as AA has interline e-ticketing with all the other OW carriers.

The press release says -

"Interline e-ticketing ... is now in place between ten of the 28 potential pairings of oneworld partners, with another seven pairs on schedule to offer the service during the next couple of months.

By then, [i.e., once 17 of the 28 possible pairings are in place] interline e-ticketing will be in place to cover more than 90 per cent of passengers connecting worldwide between oneworld member airlines. The rest of the alliance’s network.. will offer the service by the end of this year."

Whether or not you can can get an e-ticket depends on (a) which OW airline you get the ticket from and (b) which other OW carriers are in your itinerary.

I've no idea.... but I would assume not. If you get the ticket from AA, it should be electronic.... so if you make (permitted) changes, there's nothing for them to "re-issue" if there's no physical ticket.

no charge
 

Hi and thank you for your responses, I was not charged a fee for my changes due in fact that AA made the schedule change at least that what the agent stated when we did the changes.
I do feel beyyer about my e-ticket., Thanks, sara

They have never charged me the $75 change fee for a date change despite the need to reissue entire ticket. I have done this many, many times. Only fee is for non-date schedule change. The only curiosity in this was where I changed a HKG-PEK routing from near the beginning of my itinerary to near the end. I'm not sure why this wasn't merely a date change.

Does change to electronic ticket effect tickets issued in BKK involving only AA, CX and BA? If so, is it necessary to actually show up in BKK to pick up the e-ticket?

112N . AFTER TICKETING ISSUANCE:
113N .
114N . * CHANGES TO THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT AND
115N . TO PRECEDING FLIGHTS ARE NOT PERMITTED LESS THAN
116N . 7 DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF THE FIRST TICKETED
117N . FLIGHT
118N . * DATE/TIME CHANGES TO OTHER FLIGHTS ARE
119N . PERMITTED AT NO CHARGE.
120N . * DATE/TIME AND ONEWORLD CARRIER CHANGES ARE
121N . PERMITTED WITHOUT REISSUE PROVIDED ORIGIN,
122N . DESTINATION, CONNECT POINTS AND INVENTORY REMAIN
123N . THE SAME.
124N . * CHANGES OTHER THAN DATE/TIME ARE PERMITTED AT A
125N . CHARGE OF USD 75.00. THE TICKET MUST BE REISSUED.

I do not frankly see why this is ambiguous. If you change a date or time, no charge. If you change something other than a date or time, charge. It doesnt matter what AA calls the change or whether they have to reissue it. Read the rules. The rules do not say that a reissue costs $75. The rules say that if you make a change other than a date or time then you must pay $75 and if you make a change other than a date or time then the ticket must be reissued. If AA wants to waste their time reissuing tickets at their whim then they have every right to. But the only time that they have the right to charge $75 is if, and only if, you make a change to the ticket OTHER than a date or time.

My experience with AA and OWE's in recent months has been TERRIBLE. I personally will avoid them every chance I get. They have at least one great agent on the rtw desk, and a whole lot of people (including on the rate desk) that surely can't even spell r-t-w. Recently re-issued an AONE3 at LAX, an ATO that's been recommended here, and it was agonizing and about 100% wrong.

The AONE3 is a shambles - it's now two tickets instead of one, surely a bad thing, and says among other things SITI US. It's actually ex-CAI. I'm not sure any of that will bite me (and I have the original receipts fwiw) but it's not a great example of staff training

On another ONE that had just two segments left, they (specifically the rate desk) wanted to charge me $75 to re-issue a ticket that had me LAX-LHR on BA, changing to LAX-LHR on AA. Fortunately, they're 100m from the BA desk, who stickered it immediately for free.

And what about the 16 Segment limit of AA's system?

I just bought a Circle Pacific using CX/BA/QF ex-LAX and it's all e-Ticket from AA.

Is AA's RTW desk still issuing paper tickets for 17-20 segment itins?

Ex BKK
 

You pay the fare for where you start. If you want to start the fare in BKK then that's where you have to go. Otherwise, we would all default to Djbouti for our first class fares and not have to travel out at 0500 on a Friday only, or whatever the flight is to start that one.

There are lots of fare rule traps for you to fall into if you do not. I think that the only exceptions are US and Canada or Denmark/Sweden/Norway.

And that can have lots to do with the destination. For example, I had a DONE4 which QF wanted to e-ticket as it only contained QF/BA/AA flights. BUT one of the BA flights (BA number and BA metal) was HEL-LHR and BA's ground handling in Helsinki is done by AY, and AY's check-in agents use the AY computer system to do the check-in. They would not be able to see the E-Ticket since AY is not yet part of the OneWorld E-Ticket environment. Therefore I had to pay for a paper ticket to be ussued.

If it's no fault of yours that the airlines have to issue a paper ticket, then you do not have to pay for it.

AY uses AMADEUS. The SAME system as QANTAS, BRITISH AIRWAYS and IBERIA. So it does not make sense to reason that AY would not be able to see the booking. In fact when QF makes the booking, AY would be able to see the ENTIRE PNR as it is the same PNR # as BA, IB and QF all together!

I had to pay for the service of having the ticket printed by the QF ticket counter at the departure airport (BNE) since there was insufficient time for my TA to print the ticket at their Sydney office and get it to me before departure (after they found they were unable to issue an e-ticket). If I was in Sydney or the TA in Brisbane, there would not have been a charge for the paper ticket.
This is different to what the AY agent said when she was doing the check-in. She specifically said that BA (in this case the operating airline) only loaded the HEL-LHR and the subsequent LHR-FRA connecting flight into their system. I wanted her to check my lugguge beyond that FRA stop and she was unable as only those two sectors had been loaded into their system (according to the checkin agent). She said she could not see the rest of my itinerary in their system.

The issue also touches on destinations: many airports don't have the IT to access e-tickets, even though airlines might use the same system.Some countries don't have the legal framework to allow e-tickets. Some countries require a printed return ticket to give you a visa. It's a patchwork at best. AY in HEL is an IT issue, SIEMENS is the culprit.

AY is part of the OW e-ticket environment - at least as far as AA is concerned. Here's what a June 8 AA press release said.....

"American Airlines will become the first airline in the world to offer interline electronic ticketing with all its global alliance partners when it completes the roll out of the service with Aer Lingus and Iberia in the coming days, ..."

"American Airlines set oneworld’s interline e-ticketing progamme running with partner Finnair in May 2002, becoming the world’s first airlines based on separate continents to introduce this service. American connected up with LanChile last July, with Cathay Pacific and Qantas in November and British Airways in April."

"British Airways expects to be the second oneworld member to offer interline e-ticketing with all other oneworld members – making it also the second airline in the world to provide this convenience with all its global alliance partners. Besides its American Airlines link, it has been offering the service with Qantas since April and in the past few days has launched it too with Finnair. It aims to extend it to Aer Lingus later this month, with the other four oneworld partners linked up by the end of August."

Whether Helsinki is a problem because QF and AY don't yet have interline e-ticketing and/or it's something more specific to Helsinki, I've no idea....

Given that Helsinki is AY's home port, I don't think the problem is geographic in nature, but more one of QF/BA/AY technology limits. Hopefully this will be short lived.
but my point stands that even though I was not flying AY, and only using airlines that can to inter-line e-tickets (QF, AA, BA), I was still not able to e-ticket because I was traveling through Helsinki. So some geographic restrictions still apply to some OneWorld airlines issuing e-tickets. It sounds like AA has overcome these isuses according to their propoganda.