Are multiple routing changes possible w/ single reissue fee on an e-ticket?
 

I've searched the various threads, and I'm still unclear as to how the ticket reissuance fee works for e-tickets. Once I purchase my e-ticket, I assume the ticket "issues," right (i.e., "issues" in a metaphysical sense)? If I change my routing a few times leading up to departure, do I need to pay a $125 re-routing fee every time I do so, or do I just pay a single $125 re-routing charge prior to departure?

Second question: If I go with a paper ticket and want to make a routing changes (say, to snag hard-to-find availability on a segment that's NOT part of my current routing), can I actually do that over the phone (i.e., in real time), or do I need first to go down to the AA ticketing office, then turn in my old paper tickets, and then hope that the availability is still there?

Thanks very much.

Hi jgold!

You need to pay the US$125 every time you re-issue the ticket. So if you make multiple routing changes, then change the dates and carriers, change the routing again etc. and after you have actually done all of this you tell your TA to re-issue the ticket, then you will only pay US$125. This is the same for etix and paper tickets.

So with the example you give with your paper ticket. You can change your reservation over the phone so you have the seat. But prior to flying you need to get the ticket re-issued.

Thank you. Here's why I continue to be confused (there are many reasons, but here's the main one): I just spoke with the RTW desk, and this is how they described the process for e-tickets vs. paper tickets.

E-tickets: Each and every routing change results in a $125 fee and is effective instantly. That is, the ticket for the new segment "reissues" with each change, and I would receive a new ticket number for that segment on the spot.

Paper tickets: I receive a new ticket number for a new segment following a re-routing only when I physically turn in the paper ticket. Therefore, I can make multiple routing changes to a paper ticket and pay only a SINGLE $125 fee if I wait until all my routing changes are complete before I physically turn in my paper tickets and get new ones. But, the catch is that any seat I am holding on a "new" segment is really only held temporarily, because I don't have an actual ticket number associated with that new segment (which doesn't happen until I get the new paper ticket). Accordingly, a foreign carrier (say, CX) could cancel my seat on their carrier if I wait too long to reissue my ticket. Accordingly, while I can book a new paper ticket routing over the phone, if I want to be sure I'm holding that seat, I need to go in to an AA office and physically turn in the ticket (or mail it in), pay the $125 fee, and potentially pay a $125 fee again if I later make another routing change.

To be clear, none of this is based on personal experience, just what I've been told be the AA RTW desk. I also think this is consistent with what DownUnderFlyer wrote above, although it's a bit of an elaboration on it. Does my description sound correct?

Thanks.

You can change multiple segments for a single fee -- and the fee is USD 125 plus whatever additional change fee the airline you are using has (this varies from zero to another USD 100). All of the changes have to be at the same time. Most airlines won't let you book segments and not reissue the ticket for a long time any more -- in the past it was possible to not reissue for weeks or even months. Now a few hours is more typical, and sometimes not even that. So you do have to plan your changes out and make them all at once, or be hit by multiple change fees. Personally I like this change in airline policy, it cuts down on people holding dozens of seats that they don't intend to fly, and makes A/D inventory much more available on certain routes and dates. Yes, there was tremendous abuse by a few individuals in the past, which led to this change in policy. I think it was absurd to let someone book the same flight for every day for a month, when they can only fly 1 of those 30 segments -- but that was allowed, and that is what some people did. No longer.

You pay the fee every time the ticket is reissued. In other words, every time the routing changes are made firm, final, and the airline actually issues another ticekt to replace your existing one.

Usually, yes. You can phone the AA ATW desk, request the changes, make the new bookings, and tell them where you will be doing the reisssue. However, for you to hand over your old paper ticket, and receive the new one (or not, as the new one could be an eTicket) you need to go to a place where this type of transaction is possible.

Thanks to all for the helpful replies.

Still some confusion between reservations and tickets I think. If you're going to make lots of changes then the best way to get the ticket done is to confirm the first segment (strictly up to the first international segment) and then make all the other segments open-date.

You can then get as many separate reservations as you like for the individual segments that you actually want. When you make the reservation you simply tell them the number of the ticket you are going to use. The ticket doesn't have to have that segment routing on it at this point - just tell them that you will reroute the ticket nearer the time when you have managed to lock down all the flights. I have done this multiple times (albeit always with paper tickets, which I very much prefer) and never had significant problems.

For example, I might initially ticket a DONE3 as CAI-xLHR-HKG-SFO-xLHR-CAI with only the first two segments dated because they were the only ones that I knew I actually wanted to fly. Then I would get separate reservations for the segments that I actually wanted to fly after HKG, getting the ticket number entered in the reservation. Generally I would book the segments directly with the airline flying them, so I would then end up with, say, a CX reservation for HKG-NRT-HKG-DPS-HKG-JFK, an AA reservation for JFK-DFW-ANC-DFW-ORD-SJU-LAX, and a BA reservation for LAX-xLHR-IST-LHR-CAI.

When I went to HKG to get the NRT flight I would simply go a couple of hours early and get them to do a single reissue of the ticket so that it now had the new routing:
HKG-NRT-HKG-DPS-HKG-JFK-DFW-xANC-DFW-ORD-SJU-LAX-xLHR-IST-LHR-CAI
but with all the segments open dated (just because it makes the job of the person doing the reissue hugely easier). I'd wait in The Wing while this was being done. An hour later the new ticket would arrive and I'd be good to go.

This has worked well for me many times.

Good point. The other thing to consider is the change in taxes and fees. You add segments or the fuel fines have gone up, or you fly through Heathrow you might have to pay a lot more than USD 125.

Thanks for providing this very helpful info. ^

In order to book the segments, can you just call your local reservations number for the carrier concerned? Do some airlines charge for this? If so, is it simply a case of giving them your card number?

TIA.

I should say that I haven't done this for over a year now, so things may have changed, but generally I would call the RTW desk for AA, BA general reservations, and Cathay's Marco Polo Club lines for the reservations; sometimes I get CX to do the BA reservations just because I was Diamond with them and that meant they would do rather more for me than for a non-status person. There's no charge (that's what the ticket collects).

I simply rerouted my itinerary with the AA ATW desk which organised my itinerary in the first place - even when the bits I wanted to reroute weren't AA segments. I was allowed to hold the new flights without reissuing for as long as I wanted (these include QF, CX and JL segments), and I only did the reissuing when I arrived at NRT where I started my ticket; I think this could be because my itinerary was no longer eticketable.

BTW no $125 fee if reissued before departure if you're originating from TC2/3. Whether the tariffs desk you're dealing with knows this rule or not is another story... I had to make a few calls to AA NRT before I got someone who knew what he was doing and removed the fee. I think the US tariffs desk also makes this mistake quite a bit.

This is all very helpful, albeit a little bewildering. I guess there's two issues for me--the benefits of paper vs. e-tickets, and then how best to make use of either. My understanding w/r/t e-tickets is that any routing change is instantaneous, and that a $125 fee is charged as soon as the routing change is completed. The benefit of that is that I have a confirmed seat on my new flight.

For paper tickets, the way it was explained to me (although maybe I misunderstood) is that although I can reserve a seat on a new segment that's not part of my original routing, that seat is not really confirmed until a new ticket has been reissued for that segment, at which point I am charged the $125 fee. Because I am only charged the $125 fee when I actually perform the reissue, I can make multiple routing changes up to that point, although I may be at risk of losing my seat on the new routing prior to the actual reissuance.

Is that correct?

Just two other questions for christep: First, why do you leave all your segments open-dated? I had thought that there was no (or little) benefit to this--since date/time/carrier changes are free, and you're more protected with a particular confirmed seat should the carrier discontinue the route. You cited the benefit of making it easier for the person doing the reissue if the segments are open-dated, but does this outweigh the other factor? (Also, just as a separate question, am I not able to open-date e-tickets? When I reserved my e-ticket the other day, the person at the RTW desk said I needed to have a date and flight for each segment (though not a seat number).)

Second, you mentioned booking your intermediate segments directly with the operating airline--what is the benefit of that (as compared to, say, booking the entire re-route with the AA RTW desk, even with respect to, e.g., CX or JL flights)? If I want to waitlist a particular flight, am I better off doing that with the operating airline? Does this process differ for e- vs. paper-tickets?

In my case, I actually don't think I'm going to be making very many changes at all, but I like the idea of being able to make changes over the phone without having to spend three extra hours in a foreign airport, in the event that I do decide to make routing changes. I guess I'm still trying to assess the pros and cons of e-tickets vs. paper ones.

Thanks again, and sorry if these are elementary questions.

deleted

Just to be very clear on this point: the $125 re-issue fee applies only after you've flown the first segment of the ticket. If you make routing changes before you ever use the ticket, you will have to get a new ticket. In other words, your original ticket will be canceled, and a completely new one will be issued. This is different from a re-issue, which modifies an existing ticket. Note that if you originate in the US there is a 10% cancelation fee involved.

Thank you. However, this actually conflicts with everything I've been told by the RTW desk. My understanding is that what you're saying applies only if I change the first flight. I've been told that I can make routing changes to later segments, and that will result in a reissuance fee, but would not cancel the ticket. Also what you're saying doesn't quite fit with the rules:

If what you are saying were correct, the "prior to departure" section under "Rebooking/Rerouting" would be surplusage, in light of the "prior to departure" section under "Cancellations and Refunds." Right?

Not really - a confirmed reservation is a confirmed reservation. Carriers are getting fussier about what it takes to issue and hold one, but the principle still holds true. When you make a reservation separately from a ticket then you either need to get the ticket number in the reservation or be very clear what the deadline is by which you must have a corresponding ticket in there for it not to be autocancelled. It is comforting to have an email or online confirmation that you can print out, although in at least 20 xONE3s I have never had a problem of a reservation "disappearing".
Certainly the route being discontinued is a disadvantage. But the speed of reissue if you don't have to worry about reservations is a big advantage (at HKG & LHR I have regularly done reissues in about an hour on demand; CX's record at HKG was about 23 minutes I seem to recall). I have also found that checking in for flights with an open-dated coupon (and a confirmed reservation) never causes an issue, whereas turning up with a coupon for a different date sometimes does. Another big advantage of Open coupons is that you can ticket them to a city rather than an airport. So, for example, in the past I have switched my reservation from a JFK-LHR flight to a EWR-LHR. In principle, JFK and EWR being coterminals a coupon for JFK-LHR should be accepted on EWR-LHR, but if the coupon says NYC-LON then there is no doubt that it is valid. This is helpful when you are having trouble with availability. On another occasion I ended up flying LHR-BWI when I had been unable to get availability on LHR-IAD, but because I had seen this coming the coupon said LON-WAS and there was no problem.
I admit that I have never done an xONEn ticket on e-ticket, but I have had open-dated coupons on normal roundtrip e-tickets with no problem at all, so the systems are certainly capable of it - whether the agents know how to do it is another matter.
Basically the advantages tend to be better availability and instant confirmation, although the OW airlines are getting their act together so that they can more often instantly confirm. Also if you have status with the airline that you want to fly then you will likely get a better response from calling them directly. Unfortunately, with the way certain airlines are playing with yield management these days you now sometimes get different availability results from calling, say, CX in London or CX in Hong Kong. This is a stupid way to run a business, but I guess all we can do is play the game and if you don't succeed at one office then try another. Since when you call the airline direct you are just talking about reservations then the method of ticketing doesn't matter.
In principle, an e-ticket should enable this, but personally I am MUCH more comfortable having the ticket coupons in my hand. You are then in a much stronger position in any "discussions" that might arise at check-in. With e-tickets the airlines apparently (from tales told on FT) resort too often to saying "the computer says no". With paper tickets all you have to do is to get them to agree that there is a reservation in your name in the appropriate class on the flight and then present a valid paper coupon. The "three hour" thing really depends on where you think you will be when you need the reissue. I am lucky in that my home base is HKG and that is where I have done most of my reissues - the CX airport ticket desk has never taken much more than an hour and often less than half that. On one occasion where there was some system glitch they simply let me fly the next two segments on CX anyway and I collected the ticket on my return to HKG.

But all this comes with a big caveat: I have never tried doing a OWE on an e-ticket, most of my experience is now 2-5 years old, and I have always had status with at least one, and sometimes all of the airlines I have been flying with.

christep: Thank you for the very thoughtful and thorough reply. Everything in it is very helpful.

One more thing to add. Some airlines are increasingly introducing fees for "revalidating" tickets at airports if they are not issued on their own ticket stock. It seems to me that you a far more likely to require a coupon for a different date revalidating than you are one that is open. However, it is important when in this type of discussion to try to hold your ground. The basic principles of airline ticketing and endorsement are:

- as a starting position, an unendorsed ticket is valid on any flight on any airline on any date within the validity of the ticket (normally 1 year from issue) for which a confirmed reservation is held in the booking class on the ticket by the passenger named on the ticket

- endorsements on the ticket can restrict the validity further, but, in principle, if there is no endorsement on the ticket that prevents you using it then it is valid. The onus is on the airline to show why it is not valid if they are claiming so. Again this is MUCH easier if you are both looking at the same piece of people rather than having an airline employee interpret what they can see on their computer screen.

On OW Explorers normally the only endorsements are:

- "Valid on OneWorld airlines only" (or the equivalent listing all the airlines individually)
- A "Not valid before" date on the last international coupon (and any subsequent coupons) of 10 days after the date of the first coupon. (Except in the cases without restriction, eg origin HKG)

And that's all. There are no valid grounds for charging you for "revalidation" of a OWE ticket because it is open-dated or was associated with a reservation on a different date when printed. Putting a specific flight on a ticket coupon of a OWE does not change its validity.

Just thought I'd get that off my chest!

(By the way, now that we have an official OneWorld representative here I would of course welcome any comments or corrections from them if I have somehow misunderstood.)

That will only happen if you make changes to the first intercontinental (or is it international??) and any preceding flights.

I rerouted the tail end of the ticket before departure and my ticket was simply reissued, ie not cancelled and replaced.

I did it that way because AA NRT would only issue etickets over the phone, and I wanted to save on the US$125 post-departure reroute fee.

I had previously asked (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...907&highlight=) about the feasibility of upgrading individual legs of a DONE5 ticketed by AA, and the consensus was that, while I could upgrade AA segments with AA miles, I couldn't upgrade other segments (e.g., BA or CX) with either AA, BA, CX or any other miles (because it was ticketed by AA). Would ticketing some of the legs directly with the operating carrier (as suggested above) and using open-dated paper tickets give me any greater ability, say, to upgrade BA segments of my DONE5 with BA miles (assuming that the paper ticket will ultimately be issued by AA)? Thanks.

I'm still not sure you're getting the distinction between "reservations" and "ticketing". A OWE can only be ticketed on one carrier's stock. It is the reservations that I make directly with each operating carrier. That doesn't affect whose stock the ticket is on, so if the carrier's miles for upgrade policy depends on the ticket stock of the underlying ticket then that may affect your choice of which carrier you use to issue it.

Note, of course, that if you do a reroute/reissue after starting your trip then the you can change ticket stock at this point. For example, many of my OWEs have started in CAI; some were originally issued on BA stock and some on AA, but whenever they were reissued at HKG the reissued ticket would be on CX stock. Most of my more recent tickets have been AONE3s so the question of upgrades hasn't arisen, but I have upgraded CX segments using AsiaMiles on DONE3s and I don't recall the question of whose stock the ticket was on being raised, although I'm not sure whether I have ever upgraded a CX segment on BA or AA stock.

In order to upgrade a BA flight with BA miles, you need to purchase directly from BA

If you purchase from BA, you may be able to upgrade the AA flights as long as you subsequently get the ticket reissued after doing the BA flights

Dave

Okay, thanks very much christep and Dave for clarifying this. I appreciate it.

Actually, I had another thought...
 

Sorry to keep kicking this horse, but what about this? My understanding is that I could book a 20-segment itinerary with AA via a paper ticket, fly 4 segments, and then get it (re)issued as an e-ticket through AA without a reissue fee (since there would be no routing change). The AA flight I want to upgrade with miles is among the first four segments I would have flown by that point. So, what if after I fly those four segments (including the upgraded AA flight), I had, say, BA reissue the ticket (using the same routing) as an e-ticket. Would that be permissible? And if so, would it avoid having to pay a reticketing fee of $125? If that worked, then presumably I would now have an e-ticket on BA (electronic) ticket stock, on which I could then upgrade individual segments using BA miles. I assume this plan is flawed at multiple places, but I'm just throwing it out there. Thoughts? Thanks.

News to me. What rationale would you use to get AA (or BA) to reissue the ticket at no cost?

BA would not only charge you the ticket's $125 reissue fee, they would also charge you their own (GBP25?) "raising a finger" fee.

:)

... and take the opportunity to whack you with their own surcharges, which are often much higher than AA's.

It would be flawed in that , in order to be able to upgrade on BA, the ticket must have been purchased from BA. In your example, the ticket would have been purchased from AA

Dave

Thanks for all the replies. I had thought I had read on a previous thread (possibly even one I started) that I could fly 4 segments on a 20-segment paper ticket and get it reissued as an electronic ticket by the originally issuing airline, and--assuming I wasn't re-routing--not be charged for that. Is that correct? Assuming it is, I thought that maybe I could get another airline (other than the originally issuing one) to reissue the ticket.

I also had thought based on christep's post that I could have my originally issued AA DONE5 reissued by BA: "For example, many of my OWEs have started in CAI; some were originally issued on BA stock and some on AA, but whenever they were reissued at HKG the reissued ticket would be on CX stock." My thought was that once it's reissued in that fashion I would be able to upgrade a BA segment. Maybe the part I'm getting hung up on is whether the gating factor for upgrades is who sells the ticket, rather than whose ticket stock the ticket is on--which may be the same, but need not be in the case of a ticket reissue. But, based on the reasons that Viajero and others have said, maybe this doesn't work. Oh well.

All that is true: AA will reissue a paper ticket as an eticket, BA will reissue an AA ticket, CX will do the same, etc., but always for a reason, usually a rerouting. What I have never seen, however, is an airline reissuing on demand, for no reason other than the convenience of the passenger, and at no cost to boot. I am not saying they will not do it; I'm saying I have never heard of it.

Okay, thanks. Well, I guess it's always worth a try after I fly my first four segments. Thanks very much for the advice.

In all the re-issue situations you mentioned, the USD125 fee is a given. (plus whatever the re-issuing agency may charge)

I guess it's so much a known on this forum, that it's not mentioned/referred to much.

(Sort of like 15,000 mile domestic upgrades with AAdvantage, most on the AA forum have status so are more likely to refer to "stickers" than that.)