NYArgMan

As mentioned in my prior post, I would like to purchase a RTW DONE4 in IST and need some assistance:

1- Do you know If I can purchase the ticket at the BA office at the IST airport?, or do I need to go downtown?

2- I live in USA. Where do I call to do the reservation?..BA London?..BA Istanbul? BA USA? If other than IST, would they accept the reservation for the ticket that starts in IST, and price it as ex-IST rather than pricing as ex-USA?

3- Can they have the ticket ready at the BA counter in IST if I pass by through IST airport for 4 hours? Would it make any difference if it is eTicket or not?...Does BA have the same problem as AA about having 16 segments or less to be able to provide an eTicket?.

4- Do you know if BA in IST airport have an email or anything to interchange communication?.

Other General Questions:

5- Would like to do the actual purchase this June since I will pass by through IST, but perform the first segment in 2007. -- Do I need to indicate which will be the first segment Int'l or intercontinental and give a date, or can I request an open segment?. Can I purchase all the other segments open, for example, can I purchase an open DONE 4 like: IST-LHR-EZE-SCL-BOG-SCL-GRU-JFK-LAX-EGE-EWR-MIA-JFK-HKG-DPS-HKG-LHR-IST?

6- If I purchase the Ticket in June 30 2006, does it meant that the first segment could be done anytime till Jun 30 2007, and the last segment till Jun 30, 2008?

7- If I purchase with the first two segments -- example: IST-LHR-EZE, can I change it later prior the date of the first segment to something like IST-LHR-LAX (but keeping the 4 continents?). If the answer, is it can be done, if I do the change in the BA USA ticket office, would they make me pay a difference or not despite I keep my origin city as IST?


Thanks so much for your assistance!

christep

The first segment (strictly all segments up to the first international segment) have to be fixed at the time of purchase. If you wish to change the date later before taking the first flight then the ticket is essentially cancelled and a new one issued; there is no charge, but if new prices are in force then you would need to pay the difference. If you aren't sure of the date for that segment then I don't see why you would want to book a ticket so far ahead - surely better to invest the money for a few months so that you get the profits not BA?

JohnAx

I've not dealt with IST so can't give you specific contacts. Do search this forum for references to IST and you'll find all that information, including a very recent discussion about BA offices and airport ticket pickup.

The q's I can speak to: yes, you can buy a ticket almost arbitrarily far in advance. And although you may lose interest, you are also protected against fare increases and to a certain extent to rule changes. I purchased a ticket from Cathay in Colombo almost a year in advance. As noted above, the first segment has to be booked at purchase, and it was so far in advance the res system wouldn't directly make the booking, but the agent nicely dealt with that.

Your ticket is good for one year from the date of the first flight, unrelated to when you purchased it. That's unlike many tickets, and once time caused a BA agent to incorrectly state the "valid until" date on tickets when I reissued them.

To proceed, you can call your friendly neighborhood BA res office, ask for the around-the-world desk, make your reservations with them, get the record locator, and pass it along to the person in IST that you will have gotten in contact with after reading the stuff I suggested above. The person in IST will get the price (it takes a day or so) and arrange payment.

Alternately, if you have a great communications link with your contact in IST, and they clearly are all over OWE tickets, you can fax them your itinerary and let them do the booking.

If you read the rules, use the validator software available here, and ask questions specific to your itinerary should you have any, when you present your itinerary to either "local" BA res or to them via IST, there should be no problem with it. Otherwise you'll get into a back and forth loop while they train you, and you might not end up with the ideal trip. Usually it's best to also check for availability on the flights you want before booking them - unless it really doesn't matter when you travel - but a long time in advance you don't have that worry.

Gardyloo

1. BA's North America RTW desk is at (800) 828-7797.

2. You give them your itinerary, ask that they give you a PNR. You must tell them (again and again sometimes) that this is to be ticketed and paid for in Turkey, otherwise they will try to assign the North America price to it.

3. When you get the PNR you send it to BA in IST - fax contact info can be found on the BA website by setting the country (top right) to Turkey and then look at "contact us" or some such on the left side frame. I will PM to you the email address, but since their city office is closing soon I don't know that it will get through - someone posted recently that they hadn't heard back after a few days, so the IST station may be in moderate disarray at the moment.

4. They will price it (more like 72 hours) and tell you the price.

5. You send credit card info to them and they will issue the paper tickets - 20 segments no problem - you can pick them up at the airport, which sounds like that will be your only option. Four hours is three more than you need - the BA people in IST are quite efficient.

NOW, the rest of the story as it pertains to you.

6. BA will only hold the PNR for around 30 days, so you have to ticket it in that time frame or start all over. Once issued they'll be happy to hold it (and your money.)

7. Tickets issued by BA are carrying very high taxes and fuel charges compared to comparable tickets issued by AA. The difference (up to $500) may be enough to make you re-think your issuance point. AA offices or General Sales Agents (GSAs) in other cities (not IST) can issue OWEs and they will not ding you for the same surcharges.

8. Open segments are fine but you run the risk of a route closing when you don't have it dated, thus you have to do a re-issue right then. You must date the first segment, and BA prefers that you date the first intercontinental segment too.

9. I won't speak to time-value-of-money issues, but a year plus is a lot of float to an airline. RTW prices have gone up around 7% a year or so it seems, so the equation is simple. Plus, if fuel surcharges go away, that inflation might be even less. Or it could be more. Who knows?

10. Oneworld is changing, especially with the entry of JAL into the alliance, lots of interesting new routes, and other changes happening, probably sometime before you fly. If your travel is a year off, you might think about waiting to see what opportunities open up. Your call.

Happy planning.

TravelGuy1965

Gardyloo - thanks for the excellent summary.

One question since you are so knowledgeable on the topic.

Do you know of any advantages of ticketing with AA vs CX?

I've heard BA & QF add the surcharges but have not heard that about CX.

christep

CX certainly adds surcharges on their own flights (and is likely to be reluctant to ticket an itinerary that doesn't include any of their flights) so you're probably better off going to AA if possible.

JohnAx

I don't know if this is any kind of definitive list, but since AA is suddenly a popular OWE issuer, here's a link to their world-wide offices, including GSA's.
http://www.aa.com/content/utility/in...eContact.jhtml.

og

CX in BKK stated that they would like to see "good business for CX" before they will issue tickets. This can be interpreted in several ways, but common sense would say either all CX Asian regional flights or at least one CX long haul.

CX would only hold unticketted reservations up to 14 days before departure (but they begrudgingly ran this down to 7 days on my request).

AA have an office in downtown BKK in the same building (& same floor) as CX, but I have not done a price comparison between the them for the same itinerary.

NoWindowSeat

I have been in (email) contact with BA IST office just this week with a DONE ticketing, so I can confirm that their operation is still up and running. Like others have posted above, I strongly recommend that you plan, validate and book your ITN with other resources than BA IST. There are many OW general operations like BA&AA RTW desks, which are more than happy to accommondate your all booking needs, BA IST is very efficient in doing the ticketing process for your valid ITN.

Happy planning!

Gardyloo

I'm certainly no expert in the hows and whys of AA's ticketing practices, but in talking last year to TAL Aviation, who serve as GSA for AA in several locations, I came to understand that TAL won't issue tickets unless there is an AA codeshare on OW metal originating/terminating in that city. Example - TAL at WAW would issue OWEs (back when Poland was cheap) but TAL in IST wouldn't, since the only AA codeshare flights that get to IST are on TK metal, not BA or IB. In Poland, BA is the codeshare partner for AA. I presume therefore that if AA in BKK will issue a ticket, it would be contingent on the first flight being on an eligible AA codeshare segment. Or I could be completely wrong, curse the thought.

TravelGuy1965

I'll find out as I'm going to ticket and AONE5 from BBK using the AA ticketing office - my final selection of departure cities.

I'll start by asking for the CX flight to HKG.

If they say no there is also an AA Code share flight AA6082.

MiamiBeach

But AA6612 IST-LHR is operated by BA, and on 26MAR they even start a second IST-LHR codeshare, AA6355. Has this only changed recently?

Gardyloo

Thanks for the heads-up. I don't think the morning LHR was a codeshare flight until ? sometime last fall ? so good catch. (I have a December AA .pdf timtable and it's shown there, so not certain when it was added.) When I spoke to TAL in IST (guessing something like a year ago?) they were quite firm about not selling tickets in IST. Of course that was before the BA fuel surcharges etc were as big an issue.

It was interesting because another FT poster, Gaza, had worked through TAL in Warsaw a couple of weeks earlier to arrange a DONEx there (AA was quoting a much lower fare than BA at the time - not just taxes but base fare) and he wanted to lock it in, and did. I assumed TAL would play ball in IST but no.

ahab

Today I completed booking my RTW through IST using guidance previously supplied in this forum. After my first contact with them on 8 Feb we had some communications problems (fax not working, bouncing emails, etc.) but finally it is finished. It starts in October, involves 18 segments, covers 46,000 miles and costs €6235, inclusive, or about $7600 after my CC company gets through with it. I'll be happy to provide itinerary details to those of you who are interested - just PM me. I really want to thank every contributor to this forum. It could not have been DONE without you.

Lux

Slightly related, easyJet have announced they are starting flights from London and Switzerland to IST, which might make getting to the start of your IST RTW a little easier, if more uncomfortable.

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles...+route+to.html