Just in case anyone wants to know...

I just returned from Japan and figured I would share my experience. I purchased round trip ZL ZED tickets for ORD-NRT and NRT-HIJ on NH. IBEX operates the Hiroshima flight (and a few other domestics out of NRT for NH.) Since my company gave me the coupons I figured I was good to go, but upon arriving at NRT I found out that IBEX does not participate in the ZED program - or at least not with US Airways. ANA thankfully honored the tickets out of HND instead. There is an express bus from NRT to HND that takes about an hour and costs 3000 yen one way. Once at HND, it was very simple - just walked up to the ticket desk and they issued me a boarding pass from the original NRT-HIJ coupon. Domestically, ANA was very familiar and very helpful with the ZED program. Amazingly enough, it was my departure out of NRT that seemed to be more of an issue. I had a ZED coupon on NH for NRT-ORD and NH would not honor the coupon for anywhere other than ORD. The NH NRT-ORD flight was full so I thought I was in big trouble. Thankfully enough, UA had space available on their flight and hooked me up. UA rolled my name on the standby lists for all of their flights to N. America and AC put me on the list for one of their flights as well. CO, DL/NW and AA all required ZM tickets which I did not posses, but they were all very friendly and would have put me on the list for anywhere in N. America as well. Looking back on it, I think that next time around I will carry both ZM and ZL tickets so I can list on all of the major N. American flights.

One question, though - has anyone ever had trouble with carriers refusing to allow a destination change within the same zonal fare? I thought that I had read that traveling in the same or lower zone was permitted on ZED tickets, so I was a little disappointed about that - but maybe I just read that part incorrectly.