xONEx ex.ARN
 

Has anyone got any chance booking a xONEx through a sweden-based TA?
If so, would you be willing to share the details either publicly or privately?
TIA

The very first call/message I'd make/send would be to Tal Aviation, American Airlines' GSA in Sweden (www.talaviation.com). Tal serves as AA's rep in several countries; they've been able to issue AA-plated RTW tickets in some places (WAW) but not others (IST) with the differences being somewhat opaque. Still, if you could work through them instead of BA I bet you'd be ahead of the game.

I am in the process of ticketing mine. Like Gardyloo said, AA's agent is Sweden is Tal Aviation and I got their contact details right from the AA page. I am only taking a while because I keep changing my routing and I don't want to ticket until it's final, but the process so far has been very smooth.

Call AA RTW, setup the booking. They submit it to Dublin for pricing, and a day later you call back and it's priced. When you're ready for ticketing, contact Tal Aviation with payment details. They will ship tickets within Sweden only, but they can also send to ARN for pickup at the BA desk, or you can pick it up from their office in Upplands-Väsby (Infra City).

After first trying with BA, dealing with their horrendous customer service, and waiting 2 weeks to get a price, I strongly recommend you stay away from them.

When I have mine ticketed I will post more details, but feel free to ask any more questions.

I booked my LONE4 through STA Travel in Stockholm, but they ticket through BA, which has no idea of the rules of the ticket, I spent hours on the phone with BA CS to get it right, so I cannot recommend them (although STA Travel did everything to help me out, they cannot be blamed for BA's incompetence)

Even though I have no personal experience with ex-Sweden RTWs, I am pretty sure AY will issue one for you without problems. ARN is a sort of minihub for them also...

The BA people in Sweden (Northbook) had zero problems booking and pricing an AONE3 this spring, so I can't agree with mannen's assessment of their OWE abilities.

I tried to book a RTW through BA in Germany. I kept getting connectied to call centres god knows where. The people hardly spoke English - sounded African to me - and did not have a clue of xONEx fares. They told me to fax it in to them for pricing.

Didn't bother with any of that nonsense and found a good TA in Romania to book my ticket. Worked very well.

Does this mean the Romania prices are in USD and a bargain? Or is it in Euro and not that low?

Just an update on my situation so far : I have contacted 2 different agents at TAL Aviation (AA GSA) in the Nordic Countries and have received no reply whatsoever. Ditto for a Stockholm-based TA.
Thank you anyway for the advice.
Will post again if something of interest comes up.

I have always received replies to my emails to TAL Aviation in Stockholm within a day. How are you contacting them?

Just wanted to update this thread with my experience issuing a RTW ticket in Sweden. I called Tal Aviation in Sweden, gave them my credit card number and they issued the hand-written tickets. I checked with all the carriers and the ticket numbers are in the record and tickets will be delivered to the BA ticket office at ARN. No problems at all throughout the whole process.

Originally I had started calling BA RTW, but the experience with them was just horrible. Two weeks for BA just to get a price when AA takes less than a day. I would recommend dealing with AA RTW whenever possible.

Did you have to phone and/or was email ineffective? Tal has a generally good reputation, fwiw.

I didn't really want to email credit card numbers. All communication prior to that was email.

Anyone want a little wager on whether BA will charge you GBP25 for handling the ticket? :)

:) They didn't. The entire process went without any problems.

This is good news, thanks - I am considering an ex-ARN AONE3 next time round...

Somewhat new at this so a little patience couldnt hurt, can this, or any other TA in Sweden, issue tickets, mailed to a Swedish address, that are AONE3 Ex U.S.? (DFW-NRT; PVG-LHR-ARN-LHR-DUB-LHR; LGW-DFW to be exact).
Thanks,

Why not talk directly to BA in Sweden? But you are aware that you would be charged at the US price?

Update - DONE4 ex.ARN
 

I finally got an email from TAL and was told that the initial delay was due to their being out of the office for some time. Anyway, I have submitted my itinerary just yesterday for pricing and got an email back today (meaning somewhat is manning the office even on Sunday). They seem willing to help as far I can see.
Will keep this thread updated for those interested.

I think the general consensus here is that when dealing with AA RTW, the easiest way to get a ticket issued is to get the regular AA RTW desk to build the itinerary and price it, and then when ready, get the ticket issued by the agent. No need to wait for the agent (TAL in this case) to get the pricing for you.

With BA is a whole different story though...

My wife and I are finishing AONE4s in CAI next month and are currently looking into starting AONE4s from MRU (getting there by flying EK CAI-DXB-MRU) but, as discussed on another thread, are concerned about the inability of BA-MRU to book the initial MRU-LHR flight. Hence I am now considering starting in ARN (we have unused CAI-LHR tickets, albeit coach) on a DONE3, so it would be inexpensive to do LHR-ARN.

I get the message above about the advantages of dealing with AA rather than BA but because we have no long AA flights, we may not have that option. So assuming that we need to deal with BA, could someone who has dealt with BA-ARN, PM me with a good e-mail contact there. Thanks.

True when dealing with Emeco in CAI, but not necessarily a problem elsewhere (don't know about ARN).

I'm also looking for a good BA-ARN contact and would appreciate a PM from anyone who has dealt with them.

Additionally, what are the most up-to-date BA ex-ARN AONE4 and DONE4 fares?

Thanks :)

I'm in contact with TAL to have tickets issued in Sweden for my ex-ARN DONE4. They quoted a 200 SEK (~$27) charge to deliver the tickets to BA's desk at ARN, which I guess is a reasonable amount. Is this consistent with others' experience? The other issue is they need a little lead time to make the delivery (giving me two days to make sure my itinerary is as it should be).

As an alternative, is it possible to purchase the tickets directly from BA's desk at ARN on the day of departure (I believe it needs to be 3 hours before travel), or does it need to be through a travel agent?

I bought my tickets from AA throught TAL Aviation at the end of June, and they charged nothing to deliver to the BA desk at ARN.

Does anyone have an up to date ex-ARN DONE3 cost?

THANKS!

Please look at the Sticky. The first post links to the current spreadsheet of fares to the best of the knowledge of the assembled experts here.

Could someone please pm me the e-mail address of AA(TAL) in ARN ? I would like to see if they can e-tckt a 16 segment DONE4 by me e-mailing my I.D. and CC details thus avoiding need to mess with a paper ticket. Has anyone done this before ?

Thanks

anc305

Did you (or anyone else reading) manage to get your ticket issued as an eticket from TAL in Sweden?

Thanks

They did an e-ticket for me in Feb and they were very helpful. The process went smoothly apart from a long delay in taking the cash from my credit card (which had be a little worried). It turned out to be a non-issue though and the payment went through about a week before my first leg.

Thank you aussies32000, that's good to know. Can I assume that meant you didn't have to physically pick up anything in Stockholm?

Having read other threads about using AA RTW desk vs BA in the US, does anyone have a view, for doing an ex-ARN AONE3, on going the AA/TAL Stockholm route vs. doing it all over the phone with BA in Sweden? Either way, I presume that e-ticket receipts can be emailed.

I will be starting the trip in just over 2 weeks, will have 10 segments, only one of which is on AA (transcon JFK-SFO), and plan on turning around in ARN from an SK flight with either 1h15 (too tight?) or 4.5h.

Be aware that the terminals which SK and BA operate in ARN are quite some distance apart and from my experience I would allow a little more time especially if you have luggage to collect and re-check etc.

Thank you for your response.

No checked bags, and only going SK because ba.com wanted GBP 500 for a one-way. Checked aa.com, and can get return for GBP 72. So now it will be a back-to-back on BA, so turnaround should not be a problem.

Does anyone have any views on dealing with BA in Sweden over the phone to handle the reservation and ticketing?

Yes, everything was done by email and we could view the ticket on-line on both the AA and BA websites. They added our BA Executive Club numbers to the booking and we checked in at the airport using our cards and the self service machines.