Paper Ticket Question
 

After much trouble getting a 20 segment LONE6 partially open dated paper ticket I am wondering what happens next. (Ticket is booked, paid for, and waiting for us to pick up in Seattle, please note, we booked the trip of our dreams, not necessarily the most efficient trip!)

Most of the problems arose because we wanted to leave from the US (next May) and pay the US price (savings of a couple of thousand dollars between the 2 of us), despite being Canadian residents. (Go CADUSD!)

Our flights are confirmed up until August 2008, but for the final 11 segments that we are planning on flying between Nov 2008 and May 2009 are obviously still open. I want to add dates as it become possible because of commitments in particular places at particular times, but I am dreading having the paper ticket reissued every single time... Does anyone know how this works?

Also - I remember reading somewhere that after you are done your first four segments it may be possible to get this ticket re-issued as an e-ticket... does anyone know if this is indeed possible? We initially booked through the AA RTW desk and will have 2 long haul AA flights left on our itinerary when we get down to the 16 segment mark, is this something the AA ticketing office in LHR could do, or would it be as simple as a call to the desk? Or is it altogether impossible?

Thanks so much for your help!

You do not reissue a paper ticket with open dated coupons. Just call AA RTW desk (or the airline involved directly) and tell them I want to reserve a seat on flight xxx flying between the cities listed on the coupon in L class. Give them the ticket number and that is all there is to do. That is the nicest feature of open dated tickets.

Experience from a recent LLONE4 with paper tickets is that all the airlines
we used did not require a ticket to be reissued after a date change. None
of our segments were open dated.

We changed dates by phone, without reissue for IB, LA, QF, CX,
BA, BA/BMed, and BA/EI.

When changing a couple of segments with a Qantas agent they indicated
that BA may charge us for a reissue at checkin (for the BA segments), but
this didn't happen.

As stated here on FT, it may be best to confirm dates for
segments instead of leaving them open, this seems to offer more protection
in the even that a route is canceled or changed.

Also note that, in my experience, if you are at or below 16 remaining segments at the time you want to change / fill in the dates, eticketing is possible.