I'm currently booked LAS-DFW-BOS 21 March, BOS-SFO-LHR 22 March on a DONE4.

My recent experiences with lost luggage, involuntary reroutes, SSSS treatment, the so called "F" seat on 752s, the indifference of check in staff, all I now want to do is escape the USA. I have plenty of coupons - and would really appreciate some advice about how to get from LAS to LHR as quickly as possible on Monday 21 March.

Some notes:

• I can get to DFW on the 1:15 am flight (at a function Sunday night)
• Who do I call - the ticket is plated QF - QF Premium desk?
• Happy to pay a change fee - some rules advice here would really help
• Suggested routes: LAS-LAX-LHR, LAS-DFW-LHR, LAS-DFW-SFO-LHR, LAS-ORD-LHR
• The original itinerary was a mileage run - don't care about this anymore

Any advice would be really appreciated.

The OWE change fee is USD 75 (you may want to make all your changes at once to avoid a subsequent change fee). There isn't any fast way to get to LHR if you leave Monday morning; the best way is to go LAS-LAX-LHR, arriving at LHR at 1:25 pm Tuesday. You can leave LAS-LAX as early as 7 am or as late as 5 pm to make the same LAX-LHR flight.

Alternatives (not recommended): LAS-MIA-LHR, LAS-DFW-LGW, LAS-ORD-LHR. You could also fly BA PHX-LHR non-stop but AA doesn't have LAS-PHX service except via ORD or DFW.

You can change the reservation by phoning AA and asking for the "round the world desk". Getting the ticket reissued will take some time and LAS is a very busy airport, always crowded and chronically understaffed, also they don't see too many OWE tickets. Expect to spend 2 or 3 hours getting the ticket reissued by AA at LAS, esp. as all the taxes have to be recalculated. Some airports will do the reissue for you overnight but LAS is too busy, I think they will require you to wait in person while they struggle through it. Probably my last choice of major airports at which to do this kind of transaction. I'd almost consider buying a separate ticket LAS-LAX, esp. if it is under USD 100, and do the reissue at LAX where they are very good at it (and QF also has a ticket counter).

Forgot to say that your other option might be to take the SFO-LHR flight as ticketed (I guess it is on Tuesday night not Monday), buy a separate LAS-SFO ticket, and just pull the unused flight coupons from your OWE ticket. Not quite kosher, and AA will cancel your subsequent AA legs when you no-show for the first AA flight, but in practice it will work 99% of the time (avoiding the reissue fee and hassle of doing that in LAS). It will become a problem if you later want to reissue using the (now-unused) segments, but that can be solved and it sounds like you may never want to do that. This is one time when the poor inter-connection between OW reservation systems may actually work to your benefit. BA is also known to take flight coupons with a date change without bothering to do a reissue (which is free in any case, for date changes without a routing change), so you could probably do this flying BA on Monday instead of Tuesday (and BA isn't usually sold out in J as VS flies SFO-LHR as well). I wouldn't normally recommend this, but if you really are desperate to leave LAS this may be the most expeditious.

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone flogged me the other day for continuing to bring this up, but my experience last summer getting an OWE re-issed at LAX was so painful I would never do it again. Better a quiet little station (is there such?) where an agent will have plenty of time to sit down undistracted and deal with the problem you present, with help a phone call away as needed.

Unlike BA next door at LAX, AA does not really have an ATO - you just stand in line with all the pax checking in and end up in front of some poor agent who will never have seen an OWE before. And I'll bet USD20 that training amounts to this lecture: "You'll seldom see an OWE, and they're very complicated, so if you should ever have to do one, call for help. You can look at the material in your training manual if you want to. It won't be on the test."

My ticket was AONE and I had a plat card so at least I got to stand in a shorter line. My agent, like all around her that she asked, admitted to knowing nothing about how to re-issue an OWE except that it was going to take her a very long time. She was clearly disturbed by the line of pax who wanted to check in behind me, that she was going to have to neglect to deal with my ticket. Her only hope was a fellow who was coming on shift at 2 PM (it was noon) who was rumored by the staff to "know how to do it".

Other than making it clear that her job was checking in pax, and I was a last-priority disturbance who would have to be worked in, my helper was enormously pleasant during the process, but she ended up handing me the tickets at 10 PM. For the inconvenience, she waived the fee. She and her mentor also technically botched the job - because it was a new 20-segment ticket and the printer only does 16, she made it into two tickets, so it's not really an OWE any more (although it says it is, and no one will notice as I use it segment by segment). I suppose the bean counters will have fun allocating the revenue.

Quite a few people pointedly post that they've had WONDERFUL experiences reticketing at LAX, which I take as a suggestion that something about my experience was my fault, or it was an unusual situtation that only happened that one time and every other day things will be different.

Perhaps so. But given that there is no ATO position, AA is careful to manage payroll by not having excess staff standing around, and OWE's are unusual enough that agents have little or no training in how to deal with them, I'd say chances appear slim.

Knowing the right AA staffer by name, being a high-profile traveler, or arriving at a time when there is and will be excess staff for a couple of hours might be part of the key. But since it's home to me, and a waypoint for lots of others, if anyone could post specifics about their most-excellent re-issue there so that we could emulate it, it would be very useful and appreciated.

TIA, as they say.

Are people continuing to have lengthy waits while tickets are reissued? I reported on my experience last Sept, which took all of one minute. I had bought my ticket ex-CAI. I emailed them the changes, they sent it off to Dublin, and had a reticketing mask prepared. It literally took seconds for the AA ticket counter in Greenville to reissue the ticket. No knowledge whatsoever was required of the Greenville agent.

I would phone the AA RTW desk - right now - and ask what they can do - (800) 247-3247, and see if they can revise the itin and get the rate desk to do things in a semi-hurry, then send the revised PNR to whatever ticket counter you want. It would probably help if you want to use AA metal transatlantic, but probably not mandatory as long as you use AA to get to the international gateway. LAS-DFW-LGW is probably the fastest; but not much quicker than other Mon. afternoon departures from other cities via DFW - SFO, LAX, ORD, SEA, YVR, JFK... Depends on how you want to spend the morning and early afternoon Monday - sitting in an airport or booking miles or SCs.

Appreciate the advice, and yes I'll try the AA RTW desk and see what I can organise. I didn't think it would be a simple matter at LAS.

I would use the QF desk at LAX (TBIT) before the AA check in agents. QF has an ATO there at TBIT (since they don't have any others in LA), and two of mine took 20 mins each.

One problem that my reissue had was that, despite having been ticketed by Emeco with of course full Dublin participation, when it came to the reissue AA's rtw desk said they couldn't "see" my ticket in their computer and told me I'd have to take it to the ATO and have them deal with it.

Does the rtw desk offer these "reticketing masks" automatically for all AA reissues, or is it something you have to negotiate? If they're readily available, it sounds like the untimate answer to OWE re-issues.

I went back to Emeco, who had me scan and email the pricing they had initially supplied me as their record of the pricing was long gone. They then had Dublin recreate the pricing with the new routing. I didn't even know enough to ask for a "mask"; it's simply what they did - and it worked beautifully. I'll need a reissue of my current RTW soon, and I'll use that term this time.

LAS-ORD - 752 by AA
ORD-LHR - 772 by BA - ahh NCW

Took about 20 minutes for the re-issue, no problems. Thank you all again for your suggestions and advice. No SSSS this time...