the run around....
 

Booked a Circle Pacific 26 in F, ex AKL. Price listed as NZ$14,099

Made the booking through AARTW desk. Told to call the 'local' AA number, and was advised to call their Brisbane number to pay for the ticket.

This is a porcedure followed on all recent RTW and CIRC tickets I have purchased.

After 6 calls with the "brisbane" office, I am being told that I must pay A$14,777 for the ticket, as I am Australian and based in Australia. I am currently in NZ.

They are adamant that the cost is based on the country of origin of the credit card holder, and it against the rules to take advantage of NZ fare being cheaper.

6 calls, three different operators and the same line is being rolled out.

They are wrong. Call the AARTW desk again and tell they to get it sorted out or you'll book it from someone else. The rules are very clear. There is nothing in them about the country of issue or the billing address of the credit card.

What exactly do they mean by "country of origin" of the credit card holder anyway? Are they judging this by the issuing bank, or by the billing address (which could easily be in a different country from the issuing bank) or by your passport or what?

No idea. Not one single person knows what they are doing in the 'brisbane' office.

The supervisor is adamant that given the credit card I am using has an Australian address, the flight must be converted to Australian dollars.

She is citing the following rule, taken from the Technical Rule Sheet:

15. SALES RESTRICTIONS
Tickets must be issued on the stock of AA/AY/BA/CX/IB/JL/KA/LA/LP/MA/QF/RJ/XL/4M. When travel
originates in a country for which a specific local currency fares is published and the ticket is sold in another
country, the fare will be that published for the country of origin converted to the currency of the country of
sale at the bank selling rate. The resultant fare must not be lower than from the country of sale.

Her exact words were " the cheaper NZ fares are designed for resident of that country".

Consider buying it in Canada where they a clue. The problem here seems to be that AA handles its NZ sales out of Australia and they can't deal with the fact that an Australian buying a ticket in New Zealand means that the Country of Sale is New Zealand.

Oh, and another little trick that might be worth trying - very few credit card processing companies validate the address of the credit card for addresses outside the USA (in most cases it simply isn't possible except by manual intervention given the non-standard format of addresses). You could try simply giving them a New Zealand address for the card. It would probably work.

AA.com lists a New Zealand office, maybe give that a try -

New Zealand
Phone: +64 9 912 8814 (Reservations)

No airport ticketing facilities available Monday - Friday:
11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

In an electronic age, some of these rules are archaic. Your citizenship, location, credit card etc. are irrelevant .... but where the ticket is sold is still in the rules. If it is sold to you in Australia (and that means the person doing the selling, not where you're sitting when you do the buying), then you pay the Australian price. The sooner they get the xONEx online booking tool extended to include xCIRx and xAS1x products, the better. I would also 'complain' to the AA RTW desk.

to rub salt into an already gaping wound, i just got off the phone to QF in NZ, thought I would price the trip with them.

After going through the intin with the staff member, and being left on hold for near 25 minutes, she returned to say the itin is not valid due to the fact that I will be back tracking on the LAX-MEL leg:

AKL-SYD-HKG-LAX-DFW-SAT-DFW-LAX-MEL-AKL

If these fares are to be sold by OneWorld members, they must learn their own rules. The constant variations that each airline and office puts on known rules continues to amaze me.

If you phoned the Brisbane office to purchase the ticket, then they were absolutely correct in that you have to pay the ex-Australia fare, however they were wrong in the description of why

If you have the ticket issued in a country other than that of the country of departure, then you have to pay the higher of the fares of country of issue and country of departure

Phoning AA in Brisbane, the ticket will be issued in Australia. Since the ex-Australia fare is higher than that of ex-NZ, the ex-Australia price applies

If you phone or visit AA in NZ, you should have no issues getting it issued at the NZ price

Dave

When I asked the AA RTW for the NZ number or office address, she provided me with the following: +61 7 3329 6060. I know this to be the Brisbane office. I have subsequently dialled the NZ number, 0800-887-997, which rings through to the same locale as the Brisbane number and got the same run around.

Where the airline chooses to answer the phone is irrelevant. If I call CX on a Hong Kong phone number for a ticket starting in Hong Kong then I don't expect to be charged the mainland China price just because that's where they chose to divert my phone call. Similarly, if I call AA in Europe I don't expect to get the Irish price.

I would suggest finding a travel agent in NZ and getting them to issue it then. As long as the 1st sector is booked on AA flight number, which is doable for AKL-SYD, then there shouldn't be any problems getting it issued on AA by a travel agent

Dave

Just spoken with AA RTW desk, and whilst they were mildly concerned with the treatment and process, they were unable to do any thing to resolve the issue.

The supervisor I spoke with was not to worried that I had decided to take my business to Qantas. She was also somewhat unsure of the definition of 'sold in another country' as stated in the rules sheet.

Again I was told that as my credit card has an Australian address, I must pay the Austrlain prices, as per the rules sheet "The resultant fare must not be lower than from the country of sale". Despite my protest that this was incorrect, she held her line. I asked for copies of the rule sheet that made mention of credit card billing address, and she replied "it isnt written down, but it just is". She commented that AA had been 'tightening up' these loopholes for the past two years.

I made a booking through the Qantas NZ office last night, and rang back to pay this morning. Total fare was NZ$14,485.10, which included taxes and fees of NZ$386.

Complete and utter rubbish. There is increasing evidence that the competence of the AA RTW desk is simply not what it used to be.

Glad to hear you were finally able to get it ticketed. As a matter of interest, did you call the AA NZ number (64 9 912 8814) and, if so, does that also just route to Brisbane?

I have another disaster story about the AA RTW desk that happened this week.. I had booked a AONE4 from ICN during the 10% off sale.. I wanted to re route ticket after my first segment... The AA desk said they could do it but would charge me over 5000USD to do it as they would have to charge me the price of a ticket if bought today.. I told them this is foolish.. They then proceeded to tell me that since Qantas Korea issued ticket I should talk to them. I then called Qantas.. and within 1 hour I had every change I wanted and they charged me a 125 dollar re route fee plus additional taxes.. I was furious with the AA desk.. They completely disregarded all RTW rules in favor of some other set of rules...

Why were you calling the AA ATW desk then?