AA ATW desk takes your itinerary, validates and prices it for any OWE origin you like, as long as there is an AA ticketing office. With the PNR on hand is up to you to contact the AA office, or agent, give them the PNR and take it from there.

AA does issue paper tickets right now. The maximum number of segments is 20.

THANKS! That makes it easier to purchase the tix as I assume the AA ATW desk will give the final approval before any GSA can issue the tix? Paper tix will be useful as well. Just 1 last question, because AA does not oeprate at CMB, are there any chance of the local GSA mail/DHL the paper tickets to me or I have to collect it in person (don't particularly want to spend anytime in CMB itself given the safety concerns).

The ATW desk is not the final word, the issuer is. As for payment/collection details, each AA office/GSA sets their own conditions so they can and actually do vary a lot from place to place.

I will call the CMB GSA and find out. It appears CMB will eb the cheapest place to start the DONE4 if the prices according to EF holds!

I have to somewhat disagree that the RTW desk is great. I have had many negative experiences with seemingly inexperienced staff and when you try to question them they develop an attitude. I guess as compared with the EXP desk, they're not as good as dealing with things out of the ordinary. They are, however, much better than BA's RTW desk....

Most people are like that so I can't hold that against them. Just look at the posters on FT.

I suspect they spend many hours a day explaining the complicated rules to people on the phone. 98% of the time they know more than the customer. 2% of the time the customers know more than they do. Its natural to first assume the former rather than the latter.

I tend to agree with this. My experience with the ATW desk is, after adding the good and subtracting the bad, far from stellar.

Understatement of the thread. And just try to price/book/buy a RTW from a Star or Skyteam airline. Ha ha ha.

I have very limited contact with the AA ATW desk, but it has been positive.

I had some issues recently getting my TA to book a LONE4 as they were relying on QF's interpretation of the OWE fare rules.

In the end I rang the AA ATW desk and gave them the PNR of my desired itinerary, which they told me was valid.

This was relayed to my TA with instructions for them to ticket with AA if QF refused to. In the end QF "accepted" the itinerary and ticketed it.

Next time I would deal with AA directly.

Can the AA RTW desk change and reissue a OW RTW ticket issued by my travel agent, and plated on QR ticket stock?

I'm not certain about your specific situation, but I've had AA RTW desk re-issue multiple RTW tickets that were issued by BA on BA ticket stock without issue. I *think* you can but a quick call to the desk should give an answer. Please report back as I'm interested as well.

They should be able to. In years past, there were sometimes barriers in that when the PNR was originally created in a GDS other than SABRE (e.g., created by QF or CX or a TA), often AA couldn't see all the segments, which prevented them from taking it over. I don't believe that's still an issue, but I haven't personally tested it.

Amadeus to Sabre transition should be possible, but there is still sometimes system incompatibility issues. In my case, AA wasn't able to see original taxes paid for booking that was created by QF, so AA rating desk didn't agreed to make changes for me even that AA RTW desk was willing to help.

There have been also many reports that it works as it should. SFO_FT, you should ask AA RTW desk directly, if they can do changes for you. Hard to say in advance if the system works for particular booking for sure.

RTW desk just sorted a problem that BA started. I made date changes to a BA issued xONEx and all seemed fine until I couldnt see the AA flight details on the AA web site (with the AA PNR). AA general agents apologised for "the system limitations" but didnt fix the problem. After explaining this to the AA RTW person, he deleted old now unconfirmed flights from the reservation and this then allowed the AA flights to he visible to me. So, yes, the AA RTW desk is great and i should have made them my first port of call rather than messing with everyone else.