Is E-ticket okay for International travel?

My American Airlines tickets to Europe and back are eTickets... I was
never even given a choice by the agency that arranged them in December
03.

Tim K

"randee" wrote in message
...
In our experience both United and American are still issuing paper
tickets for flights to Europe. I must admit though, those are the
only
cases in which I have had paper tickets issued.
--
wf.

Hilary wrote:


E-tickets are fine. I prefer them. From 1 April, BA and KLM will
all be
e-ticket or you will need to pay an extra charge. Other airlines
are
expected to follow suit.

Hilary

Nonsense. Both Delta and BA (and plenty of other carriers, I'm sure)
sell e-tickets to and from Russia.

It's probably a matter of whether ongoing connecting airlines, or partner
airlines, can handle them. My friends just booked Delta to from Chicago to
Nice (through Milan--actually using Alitalia metal), and the tickets had to
be paper.

In what sense is a paper ticket negotiable?

To the extent that ARC or IATA serve as a central "bank" for tickets issued
on major carrier's airline stock.

When an ARC or IATA ticket is issued (say, by a travel agency), then the
money paid goes to those central distributing authorities. When someone
eventually USES a ticket for a flight, then the airline that gets that
negotiable document in hand can submit it to ARC or IATA for reimbursement
of the cash value printed on the ticket. That is why some airlines will
accept your ticket from another airline blindly--because they know that they
can submit that document to ARC or IATA for the cash value printed on it.
If they have space on the plane, they might do so without quibbling too much
about exactly how much they will be getting back when they submit the
document to ARC or IATA.

I think a ticket is likely to need to be "endorsed over" to another airline
if the routing is changed or a connection is added (in which case it will
actually have to be reissued for the new routing) or if the airline that is
endorsing it is doing so because they need to "protect" you on that other
carrier because they can't put you on the flight for which you were
originally booked--in which case the financial arrangement between the two
carriers for such contingencies might not match the ticket value. An
E-Ticket definitely needs to be "endorsed over" because it has no monetary
value--it is really only a boarding pass good only on the original airline.
Special tickets that are "non-endorsable" usually are a bulk fare or some
arrangment that is not a standard "published fare", and do not fit
interlining standards.

A lost or stolen ticket can be traficked and "laundered" (I have heard this
usually happens outside of the U.S.--it is not an above-board business), so
that whoever submits the ticket can receive the cash value for that
negotiable document (i.e., they are worth money.) If an airline works
outside of ARC or IATA (mostly carriers that don't have interlining
agreements with other carriers), then this would not be the case--the ticket
would only have value to that airline itself, not to the central financial
authority that interlining airlines use to coordinate reimbursement for
these more broadly negotiable tickets.

In article ,
Douglas W. Hoyt wrote:

In what sense is a paper ticket negotiable?

To the extent that ARC or IATA serve as a central "bank" for tickets issued
on major carrier's airline stock. [...]

I see. But you are describing how paper tickets are negotiable between
airlines, not between passengers. I am now completely confused by
your remark that ``It will cost you money if you lose it.'' What do
you have in mind? That another airline will hand the ticket over to
ARC or IATA and receive cash for it, claiming that you flew on them?

A lost or stolen ticket can be traficked and "laundered" (I have heard this
usually happens outside of the U.S.--it is not an above-board business), so
that whoever submits the ticket can receive the cash value for that
negotiable document (i.e., they are worth money.)

``Negotiable'' is not the same as ``worth money.'' If a ticket cannot
be transferred from person to person according to CoC, why would the
airline give the cash value to whoever submits the ticket? I have never
heard of this, so I am curious. How exactly does it work? Let's say
I find a paper ticket in someone else's name lying in the street
outside the U.S. How would I go about receiving the cash value for it?
I have flown on my share of weird airlines in weird parts of the world,
but they all wanted to know who I am before refunding any money.

Vitaly Shmatikov wrote:

In article ,
maryanne kehoe wrote:

There are some countries that don't accept e-tickets (most notably,
Russia.)

Nonsense. Both Delta and BA (and plenty of other carriers, I'm sure)
sell e-tickets to and from Russia.


One wonders if Maryanne has actually ever *been* to Russia :-)

--
Best
Greg "Innocent fancies become fixed delusions..."

There are some countries that don't accept e-tickets (most notably,
Russia.)


Interesting. I checked the LH site:


http://cms.lufthansa.com/fly/de/en/i...926186,00.html


and lo and behold "Russian Federation" is a choice in the pull - down
e-ticket check - in menu (don't know if your WebTeeVee will go there,
though).

--
Best
Greg

On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 18:56:45 -0600 "Douglas W. Hoyt"
wrote:

:Is it a good idea to fly BA internationally with E-tickets?

:1) They work fine.

:2) You don't have to worry about losing the ticket, which is a hassle to
:keep secure anyways (they really fill up a moneybelt).

I always wonder about those that praise e-tickets because they do not "have to
worry about losing the ticket".

One wonders how they manage to hang on to their wallets and passport.

--
Binyamin Dissen
http://www.dissensoftware.com

In article ,
Hilary wrote:

I see. But you are describing how paper tickets are negotiable between
airlines, not between passengers. I am now completely confused by
your remark that ``It will cost you money if you lose it.'' What do
you have in mind? That another airline will hand the ticket over to
ARC or IATA and receive cash for it, claiming that you flew on them?

If you lose a paper ticket, it costs money to have it reissued and you as
a customer pay the reissue fee.

I understand this, but this is not what I am asking about. The previous
poster suggested (if I understood him correctly) that paper tickets are
``negotiable documents,'' and because of this it'll cost you money if
you lose the ticket because someone else can cash it in. He certainly
wasn't talking about reissue, because reissue fees have nothing to do
with the claim that paper tickets are ``negotiable.''

Refunds have to be done a certain way - directly with the airline or
through your TA, depending how you bought it. If a ticket was booked
through a TA then they need to send the ticket back for refund - the
airline won't accept it from you.

This makes perfect sense to me, but the previous poster was suggesting
that another person can cash in the ticket and keep the money.
My question is: how?

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:46:36 +0200, "Markku Grönroos"
wrote:


"Hilary" wrote in message
...

Don't rely on it. Some airlines do require the booking reference, and
some airlines (or airports) require you to show the auto-generated
e-ticket itinerary to pass through security.

I just cannot understand why check in personnel cannot print such an
itinerary. If it really is as you suggest, then there is much to improve in
terms of e-ticketing. As I see it the whole idea is to get rid of these
nonsense paper tickets. I do undestand that such an *informal* document do
speed up the check in procedures and it is desirable that a passenger have
one in hand when it is his turn to appear in front of the desk.

There's sometimes a security check *before* check-in. For example, in
Manila you're asked to show your passport and ticket in order to enter
the airport terminal building. If you have an e-ticket they ask to see
a printed itinerary instead.

I'm not sure what would happen if you didn't have even that, but its
easy enough to print your own itinerary anyway, which kind of defeats
the whole purpose of the security check.

Chris

"randee" wrote in message
...
In our experience both United and American are still issuing paper
tickets for flights to Europe. I must admit though, those are the only
cases in which I have had paper tickets issued.
--
wf.

Hilary wrote:


E-tickets are fine. I prefer them. From 1 April, BA and KLM will all
be
e-ticket or you will need to pay an extra charge. Other airlines are
expected to follow suit.

Hilary

My AA tickets UK-US have been e-tickets, my recent BA ticket purchsed
through AA.com for LON-PAR was a paper ticket - will that stop after 1
April, or will AA pay BA a surcharge, or will I get billed extra somewhere
along the line.