AA, RTW, e-Ticket and Open Segments: lets settle this!
 

Hi guys,

Spread over multiple topics there is the discussion whether an OneWorld Airline should be able to issue e-tickets when some segments are still open. I have been discussing this with MindPearl in CPT who have been trying to get this done for a DONE5 starting in June 2009.

The first segment is booked and confirmed, all other segments are open. Now I know the rules say a paper ticket is required ONLY if ALL segments are open. I know they are supposed to be able to issue an e-ticket. What I am looking for is the final, definitive and clinching argument to convince AA that the following reply to MindPearl is incorrect:

"You're right, AA had no E-ticket solution in place for OA open segments.
This ticket therefore needs to be issued as paper, something only the airline can do.

Regards, Diego

American Airlines / European Tariff Leads' Desk / Fenward House, Arkle Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Sandyford Dublin 18"

Alternatively you can tell me AA is correct so I can give up trying.

With apologies for the confusion I may have helped to cause, finally, having all along promised me that I would get an e-ticket for my AONE3s ex-MNL with 8 open segments, when Mrs christep went today to get them issued by AA's GSA in Manila they were produced as paper tickets. So it appears that perhaps AA doesn't have the capability to e-ticket with open segments.

I do also know that CX can issue normal round-trip e-tickets with open segments because I have had such a ticket (a couple of years ago).

Personally I see pros and cons for e-ticketing vs paper so I'm relaxed about it. On balance I perhaps prefer paper (until I find out that using paper tickets has become difficult).

What does worry me now is that BA, CX and AY are going to try to charge me money for "revalidating" the Open paper coupons when I actually come to use them, in which case I guess I'm going to have to go after AA to somehow reclaim the money, although if the contract is under Philippines law (that being where the purchase took place) then I'm not sure how easy that will be.

As CX and AA use different systems this may be trouble. Now if all Oneworld carriers went to Amadeus or a common reservation system the problem may be solved. Then all the airline computers could talk to each other 100%.

I have been guaranteed a 'migration' (for free) to an e-ticket when all my segments are booked. By using dummy dates I will get an e-ticket long before I travel. The reason I prefer e- to paper is that you cannot lose it.

Unfortunately having an e-ticket does not appear to have the benefit you can change your dates yourself online. That was a strong alterior reason for wanting one.

And one of the reasons I prefer paper to e- is that I trust myself not to lose a ticket consisting simply of 8 open segments more than I trust the airlines' computers.

Losing a paper ticket is no big deal - you just have to sign an indemnity and you can get a new one so long as you have the ticket number and details.

I just ticketed a AONE6 from JNB using mindpearl as the agent.. I COULD NOT get an eticket if ALL segments did not have date assigned to each segment....

Why would BA charge you for revalidating an AA ticket? Why would you talk to BA anyway? Your ticket is issued by AA so no need to talk to anybody else.
And even if someone wanted to charge you for revalidation, based on which rule would that be? :confused:

Because all the open segments will be on BA, AY or CX, not on AA. I fear they will insist on "revalidating" on open coupon when I attempt to check in for the flight.

It's not based on any rule of the ticket - simply that BA & CX certainly try to charge for anything they possibly can these days. I suspect CX may try to invoke this rule which they have promulgated:
Even though an open paper coupon is perfectly valid as is and does not require any changes in order to be valid on any flight for which I hold a reservation.

And QF. Fees for everything.

So, basically the conclusion is: "give up trying"

:)

How come you can't ask AA to make the booking then, are you scare that the booking in Sabre might not reflect properly in CUPID?

nnnnnnnnnnnn

The following seems to work well if booked/plated through AA.

I have found that by booking flights that you have no intention of flying and later changing the booking to flights on your actual required dates gets around the problem nicely. One thing to ensure is that each flight selected for these dummy bookings departs at least 24 hours after the arrival of the previous segment in the booking. This way all appropriate +++ for stopovers should be charged, but it alleviates any issues with turning a booked transit into a stopover with possible determination of a 're-route' and any addition collection perhaps being required.

Once you are ready to change to your actual desired flights, simply call AA to do so.

It may cost slightly more, but if done carefully and not with international UK departures, it worked OK (at least booking via AA).

I did this in February where I wanted a LHONE4 for travel in June '08, April 09 and May 09. Of course, one cannot book April/May flights for the following year in February.

I booked the desired June flights and some 'dummy' ones in November, representing the desired '09 routings, just not dates.

After doing the June segments, I contacted AA and they have re-booked to my desired April/May flights. There was no charge for this.

The issue is not rebooking the flights. The issue is that when you turn up at check-in with a paper ticket coupon which is either OPEN or is for some date other than the one on which you now have the reservation then I suspect the airline will decide that it needs to "revalidate" the ticket and hence will charge for it.

This is why I (and some others here) have problems understanding the situation. When something like this happens (using an open segment or changing dates/carriers) I call AA and let them do it. I never show up at the airport with a ticket which still needs changing and never talk to BA/CX/QF as the operating carrier.

I will only deal with AA and they don't charge me for changes or revalidation.

You are simply not getting it. I have a PAPER TICKET. The issue is not changing the reservation, it is presenting an OPEN (PAPER) ticket coupon at CHECK IN to BA or CX or whatever (non-AA) airline that segment is booked on. I'm not always able to get to an AA ticketing outlet to get a new ticket coupon printed before I check in, and frankly I don't want that hassle anyway.

Even before e-tickets became "mandatory" I used to get hassle from a few places who insisted that they take the ticket off to their airport ticketing office to get a paper sticker put on it. Now I fear that they will want to charge me at check-in for revalidating a perfectly valid PAPER ticket coupon.

If you know TAs can't you ask them for some stickers so that you can revalidate the ticket yourself?:D

I think it is just not viable to book open sectors anymore because of this potential problem.

I fully understand what you are saying. I have the same issue all the time myself.
What I didn't understand is why you don't let AA do it. But you now gave the answer: It is too much hassle.
I will always let AA change the paper coupon before I got to the airport and I just couldn't understand why you wouldn't do the same. Now I do.
I never show up with an open coupon ever at the airport to avoid this problem.

In the past when CX issued the DONE4 for me with open sectors, all I have to do is to call them up to make the booking and then just turn up at checkin. I never got ask for AA/BA/QF that I will need to revalidate the ticket.

I guess the proper process is to ask the issuing airline to place a sticker on the open coupon.

Which is great if the issuing airline has ticketing facilities at the airport where you're trying to check in. At HKG, for example, there are no AA ticketing facilities so I'd have to make a special trip to their GSA (which may be what I end up doing to avoid the stress at the airport). But this should all be unnecessary. A ticket is a ticket. It has all the information on it that the airline needs - Booking Class (A), Validity dates, and the endorsement "Valid on OneWorld airlines" (or a list of the airlines), and the ticket number. That's all it should need to be a valid ticket.

Apparently, for e-tickets, each coupon must be revalidated to match the actual live segment (flight/date/class) in the PNR in order for the check-in process to occur smoothly.

As far as I know, AA e-tickets actually do support OPEN segments! (Maybe only if issued in Sabre?) However, revalidation is not supported.

The following is from the AA travel agent website:

What happens is that when check-in for a flight opens, the airline's reservation system would send the Passenger Name List (PNL) for the flight in question to their Departure Control System (DCS). For most airlines, this process is transparent as the DCS and the reservations sytem is under one system (but divided between "reservations mode", and "DCS mode"), while at other airlines they can be totally seperate systems.

In some cities, an airline may even outsource their check-in functions to a local ground handling company or another airline (which may be using a different DCS).

(Sidebar: When you are doing online check-in at the airline's website, you are actually interacting with their DCS and not their reservations system. Also the reason why you can't check-in for some flights originating in certain cities for some airlines is most likely because they have outsourced their check-in functions in that city to another airline.)

Included in the PNL is a list of e-ticket numbers/coupons numbers associated with the passengers travelling on a particular flight. This automatically occurs if the flight number/date/booking class/city pair for the passenger matches the e-ticket exactly.

Sometimes when a change is made - yes this would include changing an OPEN segment to a regular segment (in reservations mode), the flight segment becomes disassociated with the e-ticket coupon in the PNR. If this occurs, when check-in opens and the PNL is sent to the DCS, there would be no e-ticket number/coupon associated with the passenger on the PNL for the flight in question. When the passenger attempts to do online check-in, they would get an error message telling them that OLCI is unavailable. Also, if the passenger arrives at the airport check-in counter, they would be told that there is no e-ticket associated with their booking and directed to the ticketing desk (as most check-in agents only have access to "DCS mode", while the ticketing desk may have access to both "DCS mode", and "reservations mode").

To avoid this from happening, when a change is made, the e-ticket coupon (which may originally be an OPEN segment) must be revalidated to match the details of the new flight. For some airlines, this automatically occurs when the cancel and rebook of the segment occurs in the same transaction. At some other airlines, the agent must use the revalidation function to revalidate the e-ticket coupon. While at other airlines (i.e. AA), an exchange and reissue of the entire e-ticket needs to be done as revalidation is not supported. Note: This is done in "reservations mode".

If revalidation is not possible (for an AA e-ticket), another option would be to link the new sector to the e-ticket coupon with the OPEN sector using a SSR TKNE message.

If you ask CX to do this, they will charge you a service fee of HKD 300.

Once these steps are done, then the passenger can check-in normally.

When a passenger is checked-in/boarded, the DCS updates the e-ticket coupon with "CKIN"/"FLOWN" status in the validating carrier's e-ticket database. (In most cases, this is done interactively [if the DCS resides on the same host as the airline], whlie in other cases this is done in batches [if an outside ground handling agency is used]).

(Sidebar: There may be cancellations / new reservations for a flight after a flight has opened for check-in. What happens is that the airline's reservation system would periodically send an "Additions and Deletions List" (ADL) to the DCS.)

Hope this helps!

Thankyou daniellam, what a fascinating post ... ^

(Educational as well :))

Thanks, what a great post daniellam! So basically AA will re-issue the tickets now for a lot of things which didn't require a re-issue before.
So this will lead to a lot of discussions with AA because the OW rules say that certain changes are free of charge but a re-issue attracts a fee. AA will now re-issue for something which should be free. I can see there being some discussions.
But I think we always had this with carrier changes which always require a re-issue (that's what my TA says) but are free according to the rules.

christep - I checked in for a CX flight last year in HKG (to SIN) with an AA paper ticket, OPEN segment, and was not charged. I will be testing this again (from HKG) next week and will report back then! I would certainly open a debate with the ticketing staff if they tried to charge on an open paper ticket.

As an aside, I did not know that with open segments on a paper ticket, you may have to travel to the ticketing desk to book the relevant flights (as the airline can not "see" the ticket). This is happening to me now with AA as the last flights were used a long time ago (10 months or so).

I'll second that! ^

What it tells me (well reminds me, really) is that airline IT is unbelievably inflexible. For an industry that has embraced e-commerce in such a big way, they are incredibly loathe to bring their legacy systems into the 21st century. I guess the pay-off just isn't worth the investment. But I do hope they are working towards industry standards at some time in the (probably very distant) future.

QF wanted to charge me a re-ticketing fee for a date change. This was a unique QF fee and not a OW fee or a tariff based fee. I think the fee is/was $50? I didn't do it.

CX in both TPE and HKG had no issues with my AA ticket coupons showing totally different dates and flights, neither did QF in MEL. The only small issue at check in I had was with JL in SIN but that was more because the coupon was almost totally illegible than anything else - finally got to check in after the supervisor determined that I was good to go since the tariff info and ticket numbers were sufficiently clear.

Tow weeks ago, I showed up at CX in Jakarta 3 hours early for my flight to Hong Kong. I was on an AONE4, and wanted to change my flight booking on the same flight from CX776 to the AA codeshare. I had a paper (ugh) ticket. The woman at the CX ticket counter had stickers. She said I could not make this change less than 24 in advance of check in. She called CX Hong Kong, and they verified the same thing. She was willing to resticker, but said she couldn't. She was even willing to re-write the ticket (8 segments remaining) but said she wasn't allowed to rewrite the ticket if I hadn't changed the booking 24 hours prior to my flight. Very frustrating. If I had an e-ticket, I could have called and they would have made the change relatively insantaneously.

In LA, a week or two prior to this experience, I tried to do a similar thing: change from an AA codeshare on Qantas to the QF flight number (I was concerned about accumulating 4 QF segments, which I later solved by a short hop from Auckland to Christchurch). QF said they don't have and don't use stickers (they said if they had them, the request would have been no problem). The resulkt was the they would have had to re-write the entire ticket (19 segments remailing at that time), and there wasn't enough time to do that.

My conclusion: paper tickets stink. The rules surrounding these tickets are obscure, not well understood by the general agents, and interpreted differently around the world, and it's much preferable to call in an e-ticket exchange than to deal with randon paper ticket airport experiences and interpretations.

I've said this many times before, but it's only the reservation that's important. If the reservation is on AA then that's where your miles go. The ticket is valid on any flight on any oneworld carrier that flies the segment in question and is operated by a oneworld carrier. The tickets are NOT endorsed with any restrictions on flight date or time and are explicitly endorsed that they are valid on any carrier. You don't need to change the ticket to change to a codeshare, you just need to change the reservation.

Yes, but don't forget that there may have been another factor in CX's reluctance, as well. A flight on CX metal under an AA codeshare flight number results in CX having to pay AA a fee.

iiiiiiiiiiiiii

The bottom line is that many ticketing people don't have a clue...so, with an e-ticket, everything can be amended and revised without having to go to the airport by the people who do have a clue.

The only thing that's important when you're at the airport with a near-term goal of boarding an aircraft is what the person at the check-in counter says. If s/he insists that the ticket is only valid if written in Sanskrit on a stone tablet - a service the airline will provide for $50 - quoting OW rules will only get you so far, not necessarily including the boarding lounge.

That's the problem. That was my reality with both CX and QF. Not a big deal in my case, but...

I just tried ticketing a RTW through Sabre with open segments and it wouldn't go through. Had a few chats with Sabre Software support, and they pulled up the same electronic profile as you did--but scrolled to the next page:

So open segments are allowed, but you can't e-ticket them.

I ended up calling AA's main reservations number (RTW desk was closed) and they ticketed the reservation--with paper.

I'd like to note that the fare rules don't seem to require electronic ticketing at all--so (I think) for those of you who still prefer paper tickets you can get one, even if all your segments are confirmed.