[QF009]

Originally Posted by adrian

Does anybody have any experience purchasing a DONE5 from AA in South Africa? I have purchased through Tokyo a few times before, with success.

I note that AA have a reservation number in Cape Town (002721-440 6440), but I wonder if they are able to accept payment over the phone with an Australian credit card, like the Tokyo office does? Anybody tried this.

You might find this thread on FT helpful:
DONE5 ex-South Africa - FlyerTalk Forums

Good luck!

[adrian]

Thanks. Sounds a little complicated......

[QF009]

Originally Posted by adrian

Thanks. Sounds a little complicated......

You'd be right if you follow the prescribed steps in the OP of this post.

I might also hasten to add that each local office varies in ticketing policies. So point 11 might well only apply to the Tokyo office.

[adrian]

Originally Posted by QF009

You'd be right if you follow the prescribed steps in the OP of this post.

There was something over at FT about filling in credit card authorisations, with passport photos etc, - something I haven't had much luck with in the past (although it was thru Aust/India call centre, and not Capetown). As usual, my booking will be last minute, probably only a couple of days before travel, so might be easier to stick with what I know....

[madmat777]

Originally Posted by adrian

Thanks. Sounds a little complicated......

I agree, but worth the work. The steps that I added to choose my own itinerary comes from me wanting to be on the phone as little as possible and having all the routes planned very well. If that does not bother you then just call Dallas and say "I want to leave from NRT" and let them find the flights for you.

To be honest, I almost did not do it. Except that SWMBO is also CFO and it makes it a lot easier to get this in J when it is sub $10k.

Matt.

[madmat777]

Originally Posted by madmat777

.

1. Ring up the AA office which you are paying the ticket. In my case I called Tokyo +81 3 4550 2111 option 2 is for English although all the phone messages are in Japanese. When I got through to an operator the taxes had not been calculated and so he asked if I could call back in a few hours. I have not done this yet. I will edit once I have done those steps, probably tomorrow.

Just edited the original post as quoted here. Should I have told the Dallas office explicitly to have all the taxes calculated? or that I was paying for it from the Tokyo office?

The Tokyo operator asked me if I had ever booked anything through their office before. He did not explain why this was an issue. Any ideas?

Thanks

Matt.

[QF009]

Originally Posted by madmat777

Just edited the original post as quoted here. Should I have told the Dallas office explicitly to have all the taxes calculated? or that I was paying for it from the Tokyo office?

The Tokyo operator asked me if I had ever booked anything through their office before. He did not explain why this was an issue. Any ideas?

Dallas usually asks if I'm purchasing the ticket in Tokyo/Manila/whatever, and probably includes this information into your booking when they "send" it off for pricing. Sometimes the fare and taxes appear in the booking within a few hours, other times it takes about 24 hours. My record was under 2 hours.

I've never been asked that question by the Tokyo aagents. One of them insisted that my first segment had to be on AA, but I hung up, called again and got another aagent who didn't have an issue.

I've organised another ex-NRT for someone from this forum and the time taken between the first call to the ATW desk to Tokyo issuing the ticket was well less than 24 hours (the pricing returned in under 5 hours). Yes I'm nocturnal.... I remember there was a great rush as we discovered that day that surface segments would be included into the segment limit by the close of business 2 days later.

[madmat777]

Originally Posted by QF009

Dallas usually asks if I'm purchasing the ticket in Tokyo/Manila/whatever, and probably includes this information into your booking when they "send" it off for pricing. Sometimes the fare and taxes appear in the booking within a few hours, other times it takes about 24 hours. My record was under 2 hours.

OK in my case they did not ask if i was purchasing in Tokyo. They did ask if I was paying in Yen (i assumed that would mean the same thing). Perhaps I should have asked them to "send it off for pricing".

When you say the fare appears, is that in the aa web site reservation? I dont see that yet (i'll keep looking ).

Matt.

[QF009]

"Sending off to pricing" is a rather standard procedure that occurs automatically no matter where you're issuing the ticket.

Originally Posted by madmat777

When you say the fare appears, is that in the aa web site reservation? I dont see that yet (i'll keep looking ).

No - it just means the fare quote (base fare and +++) has appeared in your booking for the ticketing office and your itinerary is hence ready to be ticketed. You won't be able to see this anywhere. As I have free calls to the US on my VOIP plan I usually give Dallas a buzz back either a couple of hours later or in the morning to check whether the fare calculation's been done and my itinerary is kosher for ticketing.

If the base fare you got was JPY780 400 then I'd assume that they'd have set up your booking to be issued in Japan, and perhaps Dublin is simply a little slow in the +++ calculation. But it appears you've got the NRT people to do the pricing now.

[madmat777]

Just a quick qn. I've paid for the ticket and am waiting for it to be confirmed. I've checked the booking on Qantas and BA and there it is missing around three of the flights while on AA all the flights are listed.

Is this anything to worry about? All the QF flights are there and they are the ones i want so I can use points to jump up to F.

Matt.