Hi,

I have gone through several back threads to try and understand what is the best option when purchasing a DONE4 ex WAW - whether to book my dates or leave some/all (bar first int) segments open.

Unfortunately, I am now more confused than before as first I thought it would be best to book all dates in dummy dates as at least I would have seats though I have read problems when trying to change dates and mixups with different PNRs. With open dated I have read problems with some airlines not wanting to except other airlines tkts (as you can see very confusing)

Could someone please advice a confused first-time DONE4 purchaser. I will be flying BA/LA/QF/CX - I will need to change dates quite often and maybe make a route change along the way.

What would you recommend open dated or dummy dates? - could you also list potential problems with each system and remedies?

Thanks again

J

Well you have to nail in that first outbound international. The rest of the ticket is effectively a definition of the route that you will take for the remained of the "year" of travel. It is a lot easier to make a reservation when you know when you want to travel rather than having to unmake a confirmed sector with the wrong airline. You are going to end up in countries at times when it will be difficult to make a go of the telephone numbers. QF will bounce you to BA if they issued it. LAN will look confused if CX did something etc. Welcome to 1W integrated ticketing.

I would nail in that SCL to AKL sector in D if you can get it. Alter the rest of your life to meet it! Try QF for that one first and waitlist on LAN at the same time. Just remember, the closer you get to the date of travel, the more likely it is that D has gone and you are travelling down the back. Remember if you are confirmed in Y that you need to get the J entitlement put into the booking as you will be the first to get any released inventory in J if there is a cancellation, overrule staff travel entitlements etc in that cabin. I had one DONE4 where I only got one sector in J, beware!

Remember with the codeshares to list in both/all parts of the carriers as this will give you the best chance of flying J. As you are ticketing outside your country of residence, this is probably best DONE as soon as you get to a country that you speak the native language of. If stopping in London, try the city offices and not the airport desk at LHR during rush hour. Always have the timetable list of flights that you can take with you. Write it down and present it to the agent. A well sorted, organised and polite traveller will get a lot further than the shouting angry, tired, frustrated, disorganised punters I have to queue with.

If you really end up in the 5h1t when on your travels, send me a private message and I will try to help you out as I am at a 1W airport at least 6 days a week. Before your trip, keep posting on the thread and let's all have a go. I learn a lot from the debates even though I have DONE over 30 RTWs.

Spotwelder

Sound advice. I have no experience with OWEs but plenty with LA/QF across the Pacific, and would not want to be without a rock solid confirmed D booking for that sector, many months before the actual flight date.

Personally, I always use dated tickets. There is no cost to change the date, time, flight number, carrier etc on a OneWorld Explorer ticket so long as the routing remains the same.

If you have a specific flight included in the booking, and the carrier changes their schedule or even drops the routing, you are covered and the carrier will need to find an alternate way of getting you to your destination for no additional cost. If you have an open-dated ticket and later find the destination or routing is no longer served by OneWorld, it is your problem and not the carrier's problem. You will need to have the ticket re-issued and incur the costs associated.

So my recommendation is to estimate when you will want to travel and include specific dates/flights in the booking. You can change as much as you like later for no cost. And once you have flown the first international segment you can make these changes directly with the airline and do not need to work through the original travel agent.

I have started using open dated tickets as my RTW usually spans most of the 12 month validity and I found when dummy-dating all segments I had to remember or remind myself to change the dates before the dated segment. With open dated you do not have to do anything until you decide you are ready to schedule the next segment when you call and make the reservation. I am not sure what would happen if you were a no show for a dated segment - but never wanted to chance it.

The other thing to consider is that when dummy dating all segments (after first international) you create one PNR which you keep for the entire itinerary. With open dated segments, you create a new PNR every time you make a reservation for an open dated segment on your ticket. This may get confusing and hard to manage - I know recently stupid me had made a reservation for remaining open dated segments on my DONE4 which had an extra segment not in my ticket - luckily I got away with a free re-issue for the additional segment.

Lastly, there had been reports of some airlines at some airports (eg BA) requiring re-validation of a dated segment with a sticker (even though date changes are free and revlidation are not needed) and charging for them - although such reports seem to have subsided.

There is one big advantage of dated tickets over open dated. If an airline stops serving a route then they will reroute appropriately if a date was on the ticket whereas an open dated ticket has no such protection

I personally see no benefit in open dated tickets. Wven on tickerts where I could have them open dated I put in a date which is a median probability date where I would want to travel.

Dave

Last year I no-showed for 5 NA segments on my MONE5. It was completely fine - I called AA when I realised that the dates had passed, and they told me that the date-change rule allows for date changes after no-show segments. When I was ready to travel again, I called to make my reservations, even though the computer systems showed "flown" for each of my no-show segments, I just told the rez agent that I had no-showed and they booked me on the flights.

The only down side was that I was required to have my ticket re-validated - but this wasn't even a problem, as my TA had given me a bunch of re-validation stickers for me to fill out myself if I needed to re-book a flight

Hi,

Thanks to all those who replied - As I thought no consensus.

I keep moving between open and dummy - I suppose the question is:

For a novice traveller who will be travelling for a year on this ticket and flexible with dates and does not understand for example what a validation sticker, or a PNR is - would I be better of getting dummy dates or open.

One thing for sure is that my travels will be set in stone with regards to SCL-AKL availability which does not exist in L though looking at the class availability sites seem to be ok for D.

Thanks

J

Yeah, I was strongly in favor of dated tix, but recently have flopped over to the 'open' camp. In recent experience neither BA nor AA were willing to accept a dated coupon for flight on a different date. AA wanted $75 to re-issue them (though nothing was changing except the date and in one case the carrier). At LAX, BA was willing to sticker the for free, at least, but without their desk nearby I'd have been over AA's barrel.

Even more to the point I think the industry economizing has left fewer experienced airline personnel on staff, leaving us to deal with people who have no idea what the rules are and having no idea what privileges come with an OWE ticket. Thus changing a dated ticket can cause great concern, hopefully put right by a call to their rtw desk (should it be open at the moment, and staffed with someone who's heard of OWE), while presenting a ticket that says "OPEN" hopefully screams "you're allowed to change me".

And my humble apologies to christep and the others who told me so.

Under this 'open' strategy, at what point can one book the flights? I mean, how early in the process? I guess I'm confused, because I don't understand how the issuer can worlk out what's a stopover, or connection, or valid city pair, or seasonal sector, etc., without dates.

Ticketing and reservations are independent. More often than not I have the reservations for the first segments of a OWE long before I even talk to someone about ticketing it. The airlines are getting pickier about having ticket numbers against reservations, but it is normally still possible to persuade them to hold the reservations until you are ready to ticket.

When you buy the ticket you simply tell the issuing office which points are transits and which are stopovers. The onus is then on the checking desk when you turn up for a segment which should be after a transit to confirm that you actually are in transit, and redirect you to the ticketing desk for reissue if you aren't.

Sorry for being so dense, but now I am more confused. Ok, thanks to you I now understand ticketing <> reservations, but why are the airlines insisting on having a ticket number against reservations, if the rules (the way I interpret them) say you can actually wait until only a few hours (DONEx/AONEx) before departure for the ticket to be actually issued?

How then, do the many who arrange for their tickets to be issued in CAI and other places away from home, manage to have this done at the last hour AND have confirmed reservations at the same time?

I'm getting confused now. Does an open segment mean having to put a date against it, whether notional or not?

Viajero send my regards to both Madrid and Santiago: two of my favourite cities in the world.

The confusion may exist between the requirements for the first (international) flight and every other flight.

When your OWE ticket is issued (that is, when you pay for it and either a TA or airline writes the ticket), you must have a reservation for your first international flight. You have to make this reservation and buy the ticket a minimum amount of time before the first flight -- that minimum amt of time is anywhere from 1 hour to 22 days, depending on class of service and place where the ticket is issued. You can't change this first flight without incurring a penalty. In addition to reserving a specific first flight, your ticket must also set out the full routing that you will take -- that is, a list of all the flight segments in your OWE.

For each segment after the 1st (int'l) flight, you can choose either to have a confirmed reservation or to leave the segment "open." Open means that the flight segment is part of your OWE ticket, but that you have neither a reservation nor a specific date for the flight segment.

Ok, I understand that, but does it have to be either confirmed reservation or open segment? Is it not possible to have both? (confirmed reservation AND coupon 'open')