Best way to convert to e-ticket?
 

Sorry if this has been covered; did not find any thread when searching.

I was lucky to get an AOWE4 with 20 segments exARN from TAL, Stockholm before rule change to max 16. Kudos for all info gathered in FT while still lurking.^

Starting next month, my itinerary is: ARN-XLHR-MCT-XLHR-LAX-XJFK-SJU-DFW-ANC-XDFW-JFK-XHKG-NRT-BKK-DEL-HKG-SYD-XAKL-SYD-LHR-ARN. Ticket on AA paper

Also, if anyone has suggestions for improving itinerary, please let me know. Replacing XJFK-SJU-DFW with XJFK-MIA-DFW makes miles -, F bonus +. SJU was a new sight, miles + but only C bonus.

After 4 segments, reaching LAX, converting to e-ticket would be very practical. What is the best instance for this? TA, AA EXP, AA RTW or any other solution? Thanks for helping me out.

I just did this in October. I had a 20 segment paper ticket with 12 flights remaining.
I called AA RTW office and they said the rule is "once a paper ticket, always a paper ticket." However, if the ticket needs to be re-issued, some check-in agents may change it to an e-ticket.
So, at JFK F check-in where the ticket needs to be re-issued due to routing change, agent calls RTW office for instructions and is clearly told that it must remain a paper ticket. However, agent has only one paper ticket (4 coupons) and needs two more. So she is hunting up and down all the counters and agents trying to find more, and eventually a super comes over to see what the problem is, and says "don't bother with paper, we'll just make it an e-ticket." Which they do.
Whole process took about 45 mins so make sure you have plenty of time if doing it at check-in. But be aware, that it seems to be hit & miss if you can get an agent to convert it to e-ticket.

Heading off next week on a new 20 segment AONE5 from JNB, so I will be trying again in a few weeks after flying the first 4 segments.

Happy Travels.

NDFan is correct. Conversion from a paper ticket to an e-ticket requires, among other things, that the agent go through the laborious process of (a) deciphering the tax and fee codes, then (b) manually re-entering them into the relevant fields on the screens for the e-ticket. This must be done for all 20 segments, regardless of how many flights have been flown already. When I had this done last year, the conversation between the ATO, RTW desk and the tariff office (all 3) took over an hour, and ultimately required that some portions of the taxes/fees lines be "collapsed" into shorthand since the form fields on the screens didn't have enough space to accommodate the whole magilla.

If you do this at a small station (mine was at SEA) be prepared for the process to take more than a day, because they may not have the staffing to dedicate one person (usually a supervisor) to go through all this cr@p while trying to deal with customers at the counter.

To be honest, unless you need to do a re-issue, I'd just keep the paper tickets and save yourself (and save some poor AA employees) the serious hassle.

I have successfully changed a paper xONEx CX ticket to an e-ticket during a re-issue (again by CX). There were only 4 coupons left so the job did not seem too hard (although they were in the "back room" for about 20 minutes during the process).

I booked a couple of paper tickets back in February through AA in OZ.

After June we are down to just 7 segments. In early July over the phone I rebooked some dates and then, at the end, asked for it to be changed into an e-ticket.

The seemed surprised, but simply told me to mail the the remaining vouchers to an address he provided.

A few days later, on the aa.com booking screen, the display changed from "Ticketed" to "Ticketed - July 6".

A week after that the voucher booklets were returned will all vouchers pulled and the advice to still travel with the 'empty' booklets. I presume this was due to the TAX calculations being on them.

That kind of defeats the value of having e-tickets?

Thanks for all advice. Passing quickly (yes, it is true) LHR today, a brief stop at AA ticket office revealed they had no paper tickets. I'll just wait , evidently they are endangered species, whom nobody wants to protect.

Can one eVIP an AA metal flight on an eTicket?
When I went to "test book" my eTicket, it the web page had Qantas' logo.
Am considering a DONE3 (nested inside an AONE3).

AFAIK you need an AA-issued ticket. If booking xONEx using the online booking tool then this means you need an AA flight (or codeshare) as the first flight. Of course you can also ticket offline with AA.