OK so to follow-up christep's post and to prevent any confusion, you can book the itin with any OW airline but for ticketing purposes - ex CAI at least - your ticket will need to be issued by BA or AA (the only two OW carriers who issue ex CAI as far as I'm aware; I've often wondered whether EMECO would issue on CX stock but never had a response to any enquiry along these lines).

Sort of true. But when you first issue the ticket then Emeco or BA CAI will want to have control of a PNR containing at least your LHR-CAI flight and (in the case of Emeco) at least one trans-oceanic AA flight.

There is, of course, nothing to stop you subsequently changing the AA flight to BA.

[Just a BTW: in the last 8 years I have done about 14 ONEs in D or A. I think 4 from Emeco, 2 from BA CAI, 1 from CX CDG, 1 from BA BRU, 4 from CX in HKG (of which one, at the cost of great psychological trauma, consisted simply of HKG-JFK-LHR-HKG), 3 from CX in TPE.)

I have had a response. They do not, will not.

For what it's worth, Finnair has/had a GSA in Cairo who was more than happy to make reservations for me, even reservations that didn't match the tickets I was holding... Perhaps someone else knows where/if this office (still) is...

OK, so just to check, I can do the following:

1) Book it through BA Cairo (Mrs Sobhi), with the CAI-LHR leg being on BA metal. I prefer to use them rather than EMECO as I have a pathetic preference for using BA and also no intention to fly AA except intra-US
2) I will break the journey up in London, leave the other segments opendated and, when I want to fly the next leg, check availability on KVS, ring up the airline (i.e. CX for the LHR-xHKG-MEL flights) and book direct with them.
3) Is this correct and relatively painless?

Finally, I am at 17 segments and considering adding a couple more. Is there any tangible benefit to being e-ticketed rather than paper ticketed?

Many thanks for the assistance thus far!

I just purchased my aone5 ticket from Emeco in CAI. Very easy and painless. They fedexed the ticket to me and all correspondance was done by email. They were wonderful. I also though that the eticket would be advantagous. But I really wanted that extra three segments. I also thought that ticket will probably have to be reissued at a later date and at that time I can switch to an eticket as I will have less than 16 segments left. I have actually done this before...

Irish Lad,

1) That's fine. BA has the advantage that they have an office at the airport where you can pick up the ticket before the flight if you are doing a same-plane turnround. But I moved to Emeco just because I found them to be faster and more effecient in email communication.
2) Yup - that should work.
3) In my experience, yes.
"Finally" (which would be 4 by the way ) I have a preference for paper ticketing, particularly across multiple airlines & countries, although I have done the latter part of one or two AONE3s as e-tickets after a reissue. When doing a reissue it is preferable not to use BA or QF since they will most likely charge "handling fees" in addition to the US$125 reissue fee. CX are the most efficient in my experience (especially the airport ticketing desk at HKG), but note that reissue times have gone up with the addition and frequent changing of fuel surcharges - on a 19 segment ticket it seems that the systems are over-stretched when trying to keep track of all the taxes that now need to be paid.

Emeco has an office close to the airport. They are willing to send somebody to the airport and wait for you inside (just before the immigration counters) with your ticket for the next flight. So you don't even have to get outside the transit area. Did this already twice - both times in the middle of the night.

Keep in mind you will pay a few hundred dollars more to ticket on BA rather than AA.

For those of you who might be interested, here's that contact info for the Finnair GSA in Cairo:



Finnair Cairo
Tel. +20 (0)2 579 8601

FINNAIR RESERVATIONS
Zekri Tours
Cairo office: 15. Tahrir Square, 1st floor
Tel. +20 (0)2 579 8601, 579 8602, Fax +20 (0)2 579 8603
Giza office: 14. El Khates Street, Orman-Dokki
Tel. +20 (0)2 749 8190, 336 6062, Fax +20 (0)2 749 8190
Open Sun-Thu 9-16

I've done that a few times too, but for people who are new to this the idea of going to a badged BA office when it opens at 5am or so may be less stressful than depending on an individual to turn up and find you in the middle of the night in a strange airport. Of course I have Mrs Kamal's mobile number in case of difficulty (which there has never been).

By the way, I have always found that the people at the transit security have been very reluctant to let me through when transiting from the BA flight to the BA flight back again. On the two times I have tried it I gave up, paid my $15 and went round through landside... maybe the security guy was looking for me to pay the $15 to him?

I have now received the ex-CAI RTW ticket and would like to thank you all so much for your help. I just want to recap one thing please:

Only the first three flights were booked firmly, with the rest open-dated. I have now taken the first flight (CAI-LHR). My next two are booked with CX, but I have changed the date (after the ticket was issued). This means that the original Amadeus PNR shows them as "cancelled" but there is now a separate record locator with CX and the new flights (I can not check this online, but have an email from CX). I think this is definitely OK, but wish to check. As long as my ticket routing does not change I can have as many booking references with as many airlines as I choose (only if I book with BA or someone who uses the same system will the original PNR reflect the switch to booked flights from open dated)?

Correct, and in fact even with BA it may be set up as a new, separate PNR if you don't refer them to the original.