We all know that one can either leave all but the first international segment Open or actually date them and book a flight number.

But is it possible to combine the two - ie have some segments dated with flight number, but others open?

The reason I ask is that in planning my next xONEx, I am going to use a NA flight which I fear may disappear before the time it comes to fly it. If I leave it open and AA cancels the flight, I am left stranded, as the only way to get between the cities would be to go via a hub and that would put me over the NA segment limit. OTOH, if that segment on the ticket is dated with the flight number, and AA cancels the the route, i will be protected (won't I?) and they will have to reroute me.

Hi,

It is possible, and quite common, to do mix and match.

I believe that if you book the flight A-B and then AA cancels the flight and the city pairing, they have rerouted A-C-B for other people before on a single coupon.

I have no idea if they allow you to get the extra mileage into your account for A-C-B but I have always found that a nice "can you help me please" goes a lot further with the ticket desk than demanding to be re-routed in these circumstances. No suggesting that you wouldn't, but in this case you are playing the game with knowledge of the rules and the anticipation that the flights will go. I would not mention the sector limits at the ticket desk if the flight does go, merely bounce up with a smile and a suggested alternative route and timing that would be acceptable to you with no great fuss and off you go.

In summary, it is a routine issue for AA in NA so good luck and I hope you get the extra miles!

Yes, no problem. AA cancelled LAX-SJO direct and rerouted my itinerary automatically via MIA (although I was later allowed to change it to something more convenient for me; they were very easy to deal with), adding 2 extra segments in the process (total 22) and 2 extra transcons (total 3). They did this without batting an eyelid and no reissue. Obviously my coupon was dated; without that I would have been up the creek.

There is another case worth 'protecting': connections dangerously close to the 24hr limit. I had a LHR transit (no tax) changed by AA, after the ticket was issued, making it into a stopover (>24hrs). Again, the dated coupon saved the day.

Will someone please remind me again what the advantages are for open-dating a segment? The only one I can think of at the moment is when dealing with airlines like AA who think they're entitled to insist on re-issuing the ticket because of a date change, and charging $75 for it.

I do believe that we are getting a bit tired of this rant. True, you had a bad experience at LAX, but in my experience that is not the case. Last year, I had open dated ticket ORD-ANC. Checked in at BWI no problem. Bad weather and a potential misconnect caused a on-the-spot change of dates to the reservation. When I actually flew the segment 2 weeks later, again no problem at the check-in at ORD. And the star files specially state that a change of date/time does NOT require a re-issue.

Rant? I asked a serious question. I see nothing in your reply but a criticism and a couple of useless opinions. You assert that you checked in somewhere with an open-dated ticket and in the next sentence tell us the rules say you could have done the same thing with a dated ticket.

It used to be that an OPN ticket would help avoid challenges from front-line check-in personnel who didn't know the supposed rules. This seemed to be less of a problem in premium classes because of agent expectations. Today, with OW airlines like AA applying their own rules, I see even less of a use for the thing. The downside, as mentioned before, is that you give up protection against airline route changes.