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Looked a good bit over the forum but can't seem to find an answer so I'm hoping someone might have some insight:
I want to buy a ZED fare on Air France from Oviedo, Spain (OVD) to CDG but my airline (AA) doesn't have a ticket counter in Oviedo. If I call AA Nonrev and get a PNR is there any chance that the Air France ticket counter here in OVD could print the ZED fare for me? What about the Iberia ticket counter in OVD (not sure if it's of any use but maybe that's worth a shot since they're part of oneworld with AA).
I can list myself on the AF flight via Jetnet super easily, it's just getting the actual paper ZED fare in hand that is presenting a problem. Would it be worth calling the AF staff travel line and asking if they'll be able to print the ZED here in OVD? Any suggestions greatly appreciated!
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BPSKI11, Interline or ZED tickets may only be issued by the carrier you work for.
Your best bet is to have whatever tickets issued you may need and if you don't utilise them, refund them upon your return.
Possibly others may have been lucky when they have been ' stuck ', but as a rule, the carrier you work for
is required to ticket - I would not leave it to chance.
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If you are already in OVD, I believe your best bet is to fly over MAD or BCN, where you actually have an American Airlines ticketing desk at both airports, and buy there the ZED tkts.
I dont think that IBeria is able to issue an interline ticket for you, even if it is priced and already issued by AA. Mainly because to be able to issue a ZED, you need an IB staff number for issuing it.
But, what you can do is going to the air france check-in with another ZED like MAD-CDG, and I am pretty sure they will aceept it for OVD-CDG.
Also, sometimes IB can prepare an ID90N2 for other airline employee to fly on IB, by calling Interline travel office at the headquarters. This will help you to get over MAD and BCN. These kind of tickets are electronic, so no need to be printed.
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I know DL can issue a ZED fare for OAL. It is supposed to only be done if your airline has no ticketing at the airport. There is a special entry for the employee number and you must have your airline ID. I know it can be done because I've done it, alot of DL agents don't know what a ZED is. I would call AF and if possible speak with a supervisor and see if there's any way it can be done. Also, if you are completely stuck, I always had excess buddy passes, and if an OAL employee presented him/herself professionally and we chit-chatted a bit, I'd be willing to issue them a buddy pass if they were stuck. I really beleive in commoradery within the industry, and always did everything I could for all employees I served, regardless of airline.
Of course the easiest thing is to have a million ZEDs in your backpack, but not always possible to have all your money tied up waiting for refunds.
Good luck, hope your trip works out. Let us know
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I've got some friends heading to MAD via bus so maybe I'll join them and go stock up on ZED fares. One more quick question though: Anyone happen to have the interline travel phone #s for Iberia and/or Air France so I can ring them up just on the off chance that they might be able to write the ticket for me here in OVD? Thanks again for the help!
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bski11 - ID/ZED agreements are, generally, self-ticketing meaning the employing airline is required to issue the ticket to it's employees and their eligible traveler. This is for a number of reasons, the most important being that the employing airline is really the only party that knows whether you and/or your family are truly eligible for off-line travel. There's no way the OAL will know this for sure, even if you were to present a letter of verification.
Please don't expect that either AF or IB will issue a ticket for you. They are well within their rights to say no. Your safest bet is to go to the AA ticket office in MAD to stock up on your possible ticket needs.
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I asked today and told me NO WAY Iberia can issue a paper ticket for OAL employees, even if the ticket is already issued.
When we issue paper tickets, we do not even create a PNR, we do it on a "temporary ticket mode" which allows to issue paper coupons with OPEN segments.
In IB we issue ZED tkts always OPEN, so there is no way to retreave the PNR somewhere else as there is no PNR created.
In a case they could retrieve anything for you it would be an electronic ticket, which can be retreived and printed out. We do have several electronic ZED agreements.
Call reservation number and ask there you transfer you to the employee travel line if you want to try.
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Just a quick update on how this all worked out. Ended up going to Madrid via bus because there was no way to get a ZED printed here in Oviedo but that worked out fine because I was Paris-bound to meet my dad but he ended up trip trading for a Madrid so I didn't need to fly to CDG anyway. But, definitely learned my lesson and stocked up on ZEDs at the AA ticket counter in Madrid for future use. One thing that I got lucky about was that I happened to be at the MAD airport early so the AA ticket counter was open. Word to the wise when going to buy ZEDs at your airline's ticket counter in a city where they only have a few flights: call your nonrev travel line and ask what hours the ticket counter is open. For example, if I had shown up at 2pm hoping to buy a ZED for a 5pm flight I would have been out of luck.
Thanks again for all the advice!
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Just one more thing I want to keep in mind for the next time:
There are sometimes that you dont get the correct city pairs at the ZED ticket, but it is always worth to try to check if the airline is willing to accept you for a different flight that the ticket shows.
In Iberia, we always do it, so maybe you had a BCN-CDG ZED, they would have accepted it for the OVD-MAD.
Also it is worth to talk to the station manager of an airlines where you know that you have an agreement with, if you dont have any more tickets; many times they will be able to issue ID80 or ID90 tickets if you can prove you are an airline employee or relative, so you could have asked to AA to send a fax to the local station. This time wasnt too much, but imagine taking a bus somewhere further could be a night mare.
It happened to me once in Los Angeles with Delta, years ago, they issued like a interline ticket that cost me not many dollars to be able to fly to Chicago via Atlanta, so I could buy tickets on Iberia there. I had no other ticket but LAX-LHR with BA, and I couldnt get any flight in two days. It was at a very last minute, and I only had to show my airline card. Luckily for me, Delta was very generous and didnt charge me very much (around 100$).
In the future virtually everyone will be able to buy their own ZEDs on a web site, which will help to get everything easier, eliminating the problems of going to the ticket counters, buying almost 2,000$ on ZEDs for backups, issuing ticket by ticket, listing, and all these things. We already have some of these agreements with Spanair, SAS, Finnair, Air Berlin, ... with the website WWW.MYIDTRAVEL.COM.
Also we have electronic interline agreements with Japan Airlines, LAN, Tarom, Binter Canarias and some more. So I only have to call to any city ticket office or going to the airport and they issue Electronic ZED tickets, so no more paper anymore.
But anyway, in the midtime I enjoy very much the priviledges that our jobs give to all of us.
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Much appreciated info and report!!
glad it worked out ok.
