My DONE4 was booked on 4 November 2008 with the maximum allowed 16 segments. Since then, however, there has been a schedule change meaning my through flight SFO-LAX-LAS on AA1915 is now two separate flight numbers. Technically, of course, this pushes me to 17 segments. Mindpearl have advised that as the schedule change was obviously done at their end there is no penalty to me.

My question is, can I utilise this change to my advantage and stay longer in LAX? For example, instead of landing at around 11.30am and departing at about 12.30pm, can I depart later that afternoon or even the next day, without penalty?

Further to my post 67 above, I have made enquiries with AA in Brisbane about upgrading this LONE4 to a DONE4. After six days of it apparently being queued for pricing I received a voicemail message today saying that, because it's 20 segments, upgrading it to a DONE4 would would mean I'd have to drop four sectors.

OWE rule 16 (c) (1) states that upgrading from Y to J can be done "without penalty". The question is, what is 'penalty'? Is it a financial penalty or is it some other penalty? There is no mention in the rules that upgrading triggers a reissue.

(Incidentally, there has been no mention from AA about my significant date change, where the booking was made in May 2008 for departure in April 2009 but then first departure moved to November 2009.)

The 20-segment option ended June 1, 2008- Whatever XONEX product ticketed before that date is valid. Thw reduction in segments was advertised well in advance, and widely debated on FT.

An upgrade, i.e. in your case LONE4 to DONE4 is a new ticket, au contraire to re-writing new legs of existing ticket.

As XONEX aren't sold with more than 16 segments. that's the reason for what you experience as a "penalty".

Beeing one of all who managed to squeeze out another XONEX/20 ticket before they became extinct, I'm happy to have all the segments; the ticket presently beeing issued is only 16. Good news though, it's an e-ticket :cool:

So I did an AONE5 back in the good 'ol days of 20-segment (handwritten paper) tickets in 2005. I'm looking into doing another one. I was aware of the 16 segment limitation, which is a bummer, but I was NOT prepared for the fact, nor did I see it discussed in this thread, that surface sectors count as a segment. :mad: That's a real significant devaluation over the prior product, which only counted flight segments. Was this introduced subsequent to the initial 16 segment restriction?

In a related issue, the OWE online booking tool seems to be treating HND-NRT as a "cross-city" segment. Is that correct? I think I'd like to kick off GMP (Seoul)-HND instead of ICN-NRT as it appears access to the former airports are a bit easier. But the online tool is penalizing me a segment if I arrive Tokyo HND, as the next flight is ex-NRT. I don't have this problem with NYC (LGA/JFK). Is this a bug in the tool?

With the paper 20 segment ticket surface sector also counted. Nothing new there.

No, can't be true. Here is my 2005 AONE5 itinerary. 20 flight segments plus 4 surface segments. Feel free to tell me I imagined the trip. ;)

1 JFK-SYD
2 SYD-CHC
3 CHC-AKL (surface)
4 AKL-MEL
5 MEL-CNS
6 CNS-SYD
7 SYD-BKK
8 BKK-SIN
9 SIN-HKG
10 HKG-NRT
11 NRT-KIX (surface)
12 KIX-HKG
13 HKG-JNB
14 JNB-CPT
15 CPT-LHR
16 LHR-CAI
17 CAI-IST (surface)
18 IST-LHR
19 LHR-AMS
20 AMS-VCE (surface)
21 VCE-LGW
22 LHR-LAX
23 LAX-SFO
24 SFO-JFK

nnnnnnnnn

Actually, arrivial with subsequent departure for a co-terminal did not count as "Surface" segment until later 2006/2007.

FWIW, the surface segment does not count as one of your continental limited (4 or 6) flight segments.

e.g. -NRT-HKG-BKK,SIN-HKG-DEL- is quite valid.

True. If you do not want the co-terminal thing to bite you in the rear than you can still use an real life agent and ask her to use generic codes like NYC instead of JFK. Worked for me, but maybe they closed the loophole.

Looks like they did. I was able to use cross city connections in 2006 (Tokyo - Narita>Henada, Osaka - Itami>Kansai and New York JFK>LGA), but I wasn't able to last year or this year. Have to fly NRT-KIX instead of HND-KIX like I wanted. Using TYO didn't change anything.

I'm pretty sure that the online tool charged me a segment for flying into JFK and out of LGA (which forced me to pick a connecting flight that left from JFK).