I am now sitting in the first class lounge at Sydney airport waiting the departure of QF107. My next flight will be AA to LAX next week. Mr. Meadowfield and I were initially confirmed in D, waitlisted for A, and a few days ago he was cleared into an A seat, while I am left in business class. We were confirmed in the system as travelling together- why would they split couples travelling together? I have rung AA in Sydney, and after initially being told that all AA flights in the USA were two class only,the agent contacted the USA, and the reply was that they wouldn't clear my seat in first. Asked if I could call the AA RTW desk on arrival and reply was " don't know the number - why don't you go to the AA ticket counter on day of travel and see if they can sort it out then." ( where have I heard that before!! )
Can anything be done about this?
On a seperate issue, we changed the date of the US, Europe part of the trip back in October and were told that since the reservation was in the computer system we didn't need to change the ticket. When checking in today we were told we had to have a date change sticker attached to the flight coupon which cost $ 25 each. Our next flights will be with AA and then BA. Do they require the same date change sticker and payment?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Whether it'll do you any good, the AA ATW desk phone number is +1 800 247 3247

If you were both waitlisted, then I assume that he was waitlisted 1st and so cleared when a seat became available.

Which airline did you make the change with? If it was QF/BA , QF require to sight the ticket to verify that the ticket is valid to be changed and they charge $25 for the privilege of doing it. If you had made the change with AA, then there would have been no such issue since QF wouldn't care since AA had taken the risk on the ticket validity

Dave

How come it's a paper ticket ? I thought all the OW airlines had gone to 100% Eticketing

You thought incorrectly; there are a fair number of routes/locations for which eticketing is not available

Dave

The ticket is an AONE and if it has over 16 segments it has to be a paper ticket. The systems can't handle any more than that. (Well at least that is what they tell me on this forum)

There have been posts on this forum that indicate that a change to a ticket in the middle of a trip will sometimes result in the agent re-issuing the ticket as an e-ticket.

I would simply refuse to pay a sticker charge. Any ticket that is not endorsed "valid flt/date shown" is valid on any flight on that route for which you have a valid reservation. Just hold your ground and escalate until you get to someone competent.

Or issue all your tickets open-dated.

You could refuse to pay , however you would find yourself standing at an airport rather than sitting on an aeroplane. You can go up as high as you like, but the $25 service fee applies when they make a change to a paper ticket fir sighting to validate that the change is permitted. Going higher, they will point you to the scale of service charges which is sitting on the desk. It is nothing to do with the competance of the staff, it is to do with QF making money

Having an open dated ticket, they will still charge when you make the reservation onto the flight through them.

To avoid having to pay QF the service fee, just have the change done by an airline that does not charge one. When I had this issue in MEL last year, I just phoned AA up (who made the original reservation) and got them to book the flights.

Dave

And alienating customers. With this and my recent experience of waiting two months for a refund, I for one will avoid QF whenever I can. It gets to a point that enough's enough.

But my point is that under the terms of the contract that I have with them no change is necessary to the ticket. Similarly if I have a full-fare (IATA published) ticket then I have bought something that can be used on any date on which space is available in that class. Are you suggesting that if I buy a full-fare open-dated ticket then I have to pay $25 dollars to actually use it on QF? If so then someone needs to challenge these people in court because that is very clearly a breach of contract in my mind.

No, you have to pay $25 if you use QF to make the change to book onto the flight. If the change has been made elsewhere then there is no action by QF and so no charge. If you booked it with QF and it is an e-ticket, then the changes would be free

Dave

So making a reservation with QF costs $25 in addition to trhe cost of the ticket? Maybe I'm being dense, but I don't get this at all. Please clarify where in this process I would get charged by QF:

Scenario A
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1) I buy a full fare round trip ticket HKG-SYD. The first sector I reserve and take on CX; the return segment of the e-ticket (as issued by CX) is open-dated.

2) I call QF reservations and make a reservation for my desired return QF flight, quoting the ticket number to them.

3) I arrive for my reserved flight and check-in at SYD.

Scenario B
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1) I buy a full-fare RT ticket HKG-SYD-HKG from CX with reservations initially on a specific CX flight HKG-SYD and on a specific QF flight SYD-HKG, both of which feature on the e-ticket. I take the initial flight as ticketed.

2) While in SYD my plans change. I call QF reservations and move the date of my return flight to a new one (still on QF)

3) I check-in at SYD for the amended flight.

Scenario C
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As per Scenario B except that it is a paper ticket (let's assume issued in some outport that can't do e-ticketing).

With the paper ticket, you would not be able to do part (c) (check in) until having had the ticket validated by the ticketing desk; at this point you will be charged the $25

Dave

How long have they had this fee? Is it recent (within the past year)?