Nope. Change of date, time and carrier are free.

Edited to add:

As far as I know, a change to the first flight will usually need a reissue, because the ticket validity will change. (As the ticket is valid until 1 year after the first flight). If it doesn't require a reissue, it would be a nice way to create a ticket which will be valid for more than a year. (i.e. buy a ticket starting in a year, and move the first flight to next week. You now have a ticket which is valid for almost 2 years). I very much doubt they would allow that though...

My personal experience is that I have changed the first flight on three rtw tickets starting in area 2/3 all without a reissue. Of course, ymmv.

I don't think this one has been mentioned before but I could be wrong. So what happens with seasonal OWEs, where the price is determined by the date of the first intercontinental flight? I find hard to believe it is just a matter of booking/issuing it with a low season date and then simply change the date to a high season one, with no reissue/reprice... or is it?

I guess I don't really see this. The originally issued ticket will have a one year validity date. Provided I start my rtw before the expiration of this date the this original validity date will no longer have any importance - the maximum stay rule will be all that matters -- Return travel from the last stopover point must commence no later than 12 months after departure. As for your example, I don't see how it would be possible as your first flight would be beyond the one year ticket validity date.

Thanks to everyone for their help on this!

We now have 8 confirmed segments and 8 open segments on hold:

Confirmed:

CPT-xLHR-MCT-LHR-xLAX-GRU-LIM-UIO-EZE-

Open:

-EZE-DFW-ANC-DFW-ORD-PVG-NRT-HKG-JNB

Decided to book 16 segments to be able to do an e-ticket, mostly to make the re-issue easier, since it's 99% certain that no matter what we book, we will need to re-issue. At least keeping DFW-ANC-DFW open, we'll be able to grab space on those flights once they become bookable which. This was not a big deal at all (didn't have to get a supervisor or anything like that).

However, the AA RTW agent was not able to book ORD-PEK as an open segment. She knew that AA has announced the route but could not find any notice with the official start date which apparently would be required to book this segment as open.

Also, could not confirm any EZE-DFW in D towards the end of the schedule (last date with availability is 21JAN2009 which doesn't allow enough time for all the other flights), so left that open.

Hopefully pricing will be back tomorrow and we'll be able to ticket this week. We have family in Cape Town, but from Cheetah_SA's post (many thanks BTW! ^), it looks like we may be able to do everything by phone/fax.

Yeah, my point was that leaving the segments open has no more value than booking some random dates at original issue, this was basically based on the fact that open segments = max. taxes as all possible transits are counted as stopovers no matter what is the reality.

Got it. Fortunately for us, all open segments are stopovers, at least right now. That may change when we re-issue, but at that point nothing will be open.

We contacted the AA GSA in South Africa, and they pretty much told us everything they told Cheetah_SA. They need:

• A copy of the passport/ID of the card holder
• A copy of the front and back of the credit card
• Pricing must be less than 24 hours old.

That last bit was a bit surprising, but I guess understandable given all the currency fluctuations at the moment:We are also reworking the itinerary a bit before issuing. Because we're going to take a break once we hit LHR the second time, I am now trying to have 4 segments at that point, so that we can reissue at that break which would make things a lot easier later on.

First I thought to do either CPT-xLHR-MCT-AMM-LHR or CPT-xLHR-AMM-MCT-LHR, but the AMM-MCT-AMM schedule is just horrible, one flight a week either arriving MCT at 2:45 am (after a stop in Dammam, Saudi Arabia), or a 5.45 am departure from MCT (with a stop in Dammam, Saudi Arabia also).

We had no desire of ever going to Dubai, but given the extensive schedule from both LHR and AMM, we're thinking about doing CPT-xLHR-DXB-AMM-LHR with ground transportation to/from Oman (and maybe just one day in Dubai). We lose a segment in North America or Asia, but get to see Jordan and Oman without the hassle of the MCT-AMM schedule.

Just remember to steam clean your shoes and not to eat sesame seed rolls before you board the LHR-DBX flight.

I think it was poppy seeds

Ah, yes, you are right, poppy seeds; nasty stuff.

After cutting it down to 16 segments to get an e-ticket, this is what I just received from the AA GSA in CPT:I am waiting for the AA Around-The-World Desk to open to see what we should do. While we could have someone collect the tickets in CPT, that defeats the whole purpose of what we're doing.

Are e-tickets with open segments really not possible? Do I need dummy dates on every segment of an e-tickets? If that's the case then I guess it's either paper ticket with DFW-ANC (in which case I might as well go with 20 segments), or e-tickets.

Anyone run into this before?

Thanks!

I haven't, but if all that is needed to get the eTicket you want is a few dummy dates, right or wrong, why not go for it?

Edited to add: I realize there is a possible problem with ANC but, hey, the agent is giving you option 2; I would accept it and put the ball in his court.

By the way, for the benefit of newcomers, I want to correct an error in the agent's response, probably due to haste:

"as long as the routing, class and airline remains the same"

The "airline" part is incorrect.