Timing on ex IST DONE 4
 

Greetings:

I plan to start two DONE4 tickets from IST in mid Oct. I am set on flights (experts OK + Oneworld Val.) Plan on contacting BA next and also IST.

When should I pay for the tickets?

Would 4/1/05 be to early for a 10/18/05 start???? Beloved wife is a bit leery about IST due to lossing a carpet in transit a few years back.....not same ball game I know ....but.....you tell her that!!! :D

Any suggestions would help.
Thanks,

There should be no issue with paying for the tickets far in advance. It's a good idea if you expect prices to increase significantly. I have an ex-CMB set at the moment that I bought almost a year before first segment sched.

I'm agonizing about buying back-to-backs when we pick up ours in IST next month. We'd be finishing the pending trip around November, so IMO the chances are very good that by then the price may well have gone up, so locking in might be the wisest thing to do.

It seems a fairly straightforward "time value of money" calculation - loss of interest earnings on cash used for tickets plus interest expense (if any) on amount charged to credit cards but not paid off right away, plus currency conversion charges if any (not a problem for us if billed in USD, 3 or 4% if converted), less potential increase in ticket price, plus/less changes in taxes, fuel surcharges, etc. that might occur during the "float" period.... and so on.

As with most such purchases the general rule is that it's never going to be as cheap as it is today, and most investors will tell you that trying to time the market is a fool's game. But it's a big chunk of change and we too are wondering about timing.

Wrong post.........

in a nutshell
1. Not a lot to gain by hanging back...(low intrest rates, able to refund...)
2. A possibilily to lose a lot...(case WAW...)

Need to say more?

Did you really mean that? It's still not too difficult to find banks who don't surcharge above the Visa/MC 1%, and the ones who are so kind to their customers on that matter turn out to be very nice to deal with on most other issues as well. Two choices are AFBA and CapitalOne.

We are certainly looking into cheaper conversion charges but lots of movement in the field at the moment. Have you used a US bank-issued ATM card overseas recently?

Misunderstanding as to Question????
 

Oops....perhaps I should have put my question in a different way? I will write off loss of interest,etc.,etc. to lock in the present IST price (I lost out on WAW due to being sick, instead of booking)

My question should have asked out right........will my paid ticket be there in six months? Will it know me..................? :rolleyes:

As long as the hard drives keep spinning, yes.

I bought a ticket on 31-Dec-2003 ex-CAI that did not start until 1-Oct-2004. Good thing that I did since prices went up about 20% in local currency.

I suppose it shouldn't be a problem, just hope BA has a large safe :)

I have currently 2 ticketed DONEs at their safe, won't be picked until late May...

Thanks...................
 

Thank you one and all......................

I now can present your comments to beloved wife and tell her that we will not lose our tickets as we lost our carpet.............Now on to the next step.....Once again thanks to FT

Now that you're off to convince the spouse, I for one was answering the wrong question.

Given that the agent at IST will let you pay for the tix before arriving (c/c? wire xfer?) why will they not accept another USD25 from you and Fedex them to you? Agents and airlines seem to be getting much more casual about what once were strong SITI rules.

Other than that, the security of tickets sitting in IST sounds to me like it depends a whole lot on the integrity of the entity holding them.

Fed EX ing Tickets????
 

JohnAx...........I have wondered about that also....if the tickets are paid for is there a "rule" out there that does not allow shipping them to you?

It would seem that the BA office would like to close there books on a"sale" if they could. A service charge perhaps?

Seems to me someone did get there tickets from waw or perhaps some other place using there account with Fed EX.....it was not easy as I remember it but he did get it done. (Thought FED EX should have a better system?)

Any enlightment from the front bench?

When doing our ticketing a couple of weeks ago with BA IST I was told that they do not prefer to send the tickets via mail/courier but I think they will do it if someone really wants...they mentioned something about trouble if they get lost etc...Maybe I am naive but I trust BA's safe over my own shelf, anyway we still have to go down there so they can as well hold on to the tickets...

Was just wondering................
 

You are most likly right...as long as there is a BA "safe"....I think my first question has been answered and beloved wife will feel at ease now. (And I can move on to next step!) :)

As to my second question about FedEx , there just might be a time when using Fedex might be needed so comments mightn be of interest.

Hey, No Window Seat................
 

Just reread "when doing our tickting,etc,etc"........This is my first attempt at this "game".......how did you ticket your ticket????? I am trying to keep away from the phone if at all possible but I was going to call BANA on Tuesday and try and book my DONE4 exIST. (I am big time hard of hearing so any way I can get around the draeded phone I do :D )

Would it work contacting IST direct by EMail? Do you have an EMail address...for anyone?

Any help would be appreciated..................Thanks......

There used to be a fairly rigid rule that said OWE tickets (and many others with regional pricing) could only be Sold In and Ticketed In the country where they were priced, i.e. SITI. So an airline office would expect that you would appear in person to pay for and pick up your tickets. We would skulk around, more or less, using travel agents to front for us in such transactions.

These days things are a lot looser. Someone actually reportedly (I think it worked out) bought tickets at the WAW rate, but paid for them and picked them up in London, but I think that was a fluke. But some airlines at least are willing to sell you tickets against a c/c you fax them, and hold them for pickup, but afaik they generally still aren't in the business of Fedexing them. Their farflung offices probably don't have FedEx accounts, since their most important papers just go back and forth to home port on their own fleet.

If that's the stumbling block, I suppose it's not too painful for you to establish a FedEx account. Then you can print a shipper against your account, and send it to IST, assuming they go with the idea. I've never had a FedEx account, but getting a UPS account was trivial.

TA's on the other hand are used to shipping tix and can deal with it easily. And FedEx is VERY unlikely to lose your important documents - getting them safely from a to b is what they do for a living, and I don't doubt that a lot of envelopes that travel internationally are high value. And when it happens, if you don't do it often enough that it's boring, it's fun tracking your package up through Europe and on to your pocket.

Here's the approach I'd take.

First, develop an itinerary that you think will work, and post it here. What I and others have concluded about the IST office is that they are very nice people but a bit overwhelmed with RTW ticketing requests, so getting the itinerary vetted here would help them avoid having to make rule interpretations, etc.

Once you are comfortable with the itinerary, fax it to them at +90 212 317 6606 (fax number as posted on BA website.) Give them your email address with the fax and mention that you'd prefer email as the main channel for communications. They will be happy to accommodate you.

Once the itin has been approved and the rate desk has done that voodoo that they do, they will email you with a PNR and instructions on how to pay. I used my US-issued credit card with no problems; in fact the charge posted the day after I sent it. I scanned in both the front and back of the cc, and my passport photo page, and sent them as attachments to an email; I was assured that they would not release the information past their (secure) server in IST.

I am picking up the paper tix next month at their office as others have done; they will be happy to send the tickets to the airport counter the day of your departure from IST, but I wanted to meet and thank them personally.

I will PM you with the office's general email. As I and others have said, I recommend using a friendly approach with the IST office; it will be returned in kind, and we truly don't want to alientate these nice people with incomplete requests or inundate their small office with all thiis weirdness.

Regarding FedEx or other forwarding, I believe it was Gaza that had success with this approach with Tal Aviation in Warsaw before Poland prices tanked. I don't know if BA/IST would consider it, but asking is free.

Especially if you're uncomfortable using the phone, I would suggest cutting out the BA N. America RTW desk as it seems a 50-50 chance that they will be much help.

I am in the process of ticketing from them. When I suggested CTO or airport pickup, they said I should come to the CTO.

I used the same process as described by Gardyloo. I emailed them an itinerary last Tuesday morning, and they sent me the booking with fare and taxes on Friday afternoon. (Between Tuesday and Friday there was no email from them acknowledging that they had received my request and were processing it. Their emails also dont come with any Agent's name- only "Telesales IST"). They gave me six days to ticket it. I sent them the CC and passport scan yesterday, and asked them to ticket it today. I will pick it up from their CTO on March 29 when I am in transit between Istanbul and Bishkek.

DEL on e-ticket?
 

BA IST informed me that they have issued an eticket today for this DONE3. I'm a little concerned since the itin includes DEL. My experience at Delhi has been that the guard asks to see a paper ticket before letting you in to the terminal.

Has anyone here used an eticket for an international flight out of DEL?

Without having personal experience about this particular procedure, I would say that there will be no problem to get in to the terminal with an e-ticket. Hope you do not worry if a meteorite falls on the roof while you're in the lounge? ;)

Enjoy your trip!

I had more problems with FedEx collecting and delivering the ticket than I had getting Tal to issue it. :mad:

I set-up a FedEx account and attempted to arrange a collection from Poland. I thought that it would be straightforward but I was sadly mistaken. A week after my first request and many fruitless phone calls and faxes to customer services (which I think are outsourced to India) they eventually managed to arrange the collection.

I've complained and had my transaction refund (approx GBP54).

Thanks to all once again
 

Thanks for all the feed back.......

I sent a EMail outlining what I need/want......I asked them best way to get this done for both of us.

My itinerary is all set (Oked) so as soon as I hear back I will follow whatever directions they give and "run with it".

If this works and from all that has been said it should. It really will make me feel good. At the very, very best of times using the phone on my part can be a "joke". Lhr could come out LAX, AKL takes me to ANC, etc.,etc :confused:

So I will report my ups and downs .

TomT