Booking RTW through Sabre
 

I'm thinking about building my RTW in Sabre (I use a host agency), queuing it over to AA to price out, and then issuing the ticket myself. I want to do this for all the standard reasons people like to book complex itineraries themselves (mainly, to cut out constantly being on hold with a bunch of agents on the phone).

Are there any huge disadvantages to doing this? My worry is that I'll be somewhere in the world with no Sabre access and I'll need to make a change to my itinerary (most likely just a date change, not a reroute). I know DL now charges a fee for making any change to an itinerary booked by travel agents but I haven't found evidence that AA does this as well.

By the way, for those of you trying this at home: You don't need to queue the PNR to the regular international rate desk queue. RTW has their own pricing queue--QP/TUL91/11.

AA will be able to alter an agency booking for you post departure. I've not been charged anything.

And I assume you're booking ex-USA? If you're starting an itinerary from an overseas location you'd still need to get a local ticketing office (or offices in the EU or Canada) to issue the itinerary for you to get the lower price.

I'm ticketing in the US and flying ex-LGW with the EU exception, so I should be fine in that respect.

Quick check of the rules--"Not applicable for sales made and/or travel originating in Canada or the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA)."

So I should be good to go, unless I'm misreading that.

Thanks for confirming that an agency booking isn't a problem.

Yes you are misreading that.

You cannot ticket in USA as it is considered a 'sale' and you're originating in the EU. If you're based in Canada, then that's fine.

Basically if you even have to ASK the question whether you can book through Sabre means that you are not qualified to even attempt this sort of transaction. Using a host agency does not qualify you as a travel agent. Especially amateur ones pretending to be professionals.

What sort of ticket is this - an xONEx? If so, why don't you use the online tool to book it? If it's some other sort of ticket (xGLOBxx etc.), just call the AA RTW desk at 1-800-247-3247, tell them the flights you want, have them price it and then get it issued. No need whatsover to be "constantly on hold with a bunch of agents" - just call the RTW desk and tell them what dates and flights you want.

Right--I know I'm not a travel agent, which is why I would NEVER book something like this for someone else. I have no problems shooting myself in the foot by trying it for myself, however.

My itinerary came back from the pricing queue--
24.H-UNABLE TO RATE DUE TO NO AA TRANSOCEANIC FLT, NN TO
25.H-REQUEST RATE FROM BA SO THEY CAN COLLECT APPL YQ/YR .
26.H-THX COOPS 0708/03JAN/TK9

I have an AA international flight (BDA-JFK) but none of my over-the-water flights are on AA. Guess I'll need to call them now anyway.

Strange, AA RTW very happily ticketed my current ex-MNL AONE3 with only 5 domestic segments on AA codes/metal.

BDA Shorts is hooked up to Sabre and has DIYed the booking, rendering it an agency booking. The AA tariffs desks won't provide a rate for agency bookings if they don't contain at least one AA overwater segment. They'd do such bookings only for pax who have dealt directly with AA (eg RTW desk).

Ahh... that'll do it. That, combined with having to ticket in London (I'd imagine it's a pain to transfer the PNR over to them, and transferring would defeat the whole point of DIYing this anyway) means I'll probably have to do it the old-fashioned way, through the phone.

I could add in an AA over-the-water piece but that would turn my LON-BDA direct flight into LON-JFK-BDA, which is much less convenient.

If anyone is interested, my itinerary is:
BA LGW-BDA
AA BDA-JFK
AA JFK-RDU
AA RDU-DFW
QF DFW-HNL (operated by AA)
QF HNL-SYD
surface sector
QF BNE-AKL
QF AKL-MEL
QF MEL-PER
QF PER-NRT
CX NRT-HKG
CX HKG-DXB
RJ DXB-AMM
RJ AMM-TLV
BA TLV-LHR

You could switch DFW-HNL-SYD to the AA flight codes and requeue.

Might have been faster to ring up the ATW desk after all that, btw. ;)

I don't see an AA flight code for HNL-SYD... they do codeshare the QF LAX-SYD and SFO-SYD but I need to be in HNL for at least long enough to get a driver's license (needed for tax purposes).

Might be a good time to ask--I'm booking DFW-HNL on QF/AA codeshare instead of directly on AA to avoid the $100 fuel surcharge. Shouldn't be any problems with that, right?

AA7358 HNL-SYD.

You'd only be able to book DFW-HNL on QF if there's a transpacific segment on QF flight code IIRC.

Ohh, perfect. I tried pricing out that segment on a standalone basis and it looks like there are no fuel surcharges... so I'll just switch that over.

Right, that QF shows up as "INTL ONLINE CONEX/STPVR TFC ONLY"--since I'm stopping in HNL and then continuing on QF to SYD that should be okay. Or, rather, it would have been okay but for the above change to the AA codeshare.

And alas, we get to this problem: AA7358 HNL-SYD doesn't have availability in L on 9/25. QF 4, on the other hand, does. I doubt the rate desk will be happy about pricing this out if the AA over-the-water is waitlist.

If I really wanted to I'd imagine I could find another date where AA7358 does have L, book that, price and ticket, then change back to QF4 on the date that I want... at this point, probably easier to pick up the phone!