falstaff From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 5670 posts, RR: 29 Posted (9 months 1 week 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 1915 times:
I was at the Operation Liftoff store today, near STL (in Trans State's training center) and picked up some neat TWA nick knacks. I picked up this paper weight that was made in the 1990s, according to the former Ozark/TWA FA that was working. She thought these were made from old stamps that were used to cancel tickets, from an earlier era but wasn't 100% sure. The box had the stamp number on it so I assume TWA thought it was important to number them, as to maybe attract people who once were assigned the stamps. They had four of them and I bought two (one for a friend) at $5 each.
asqx From United States of America, joined Jun 1999, 588 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (9 months 1 week 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 1790 times:
Ahhh, an old validator stamp plate. I remember having to go around the ticket counter at night collecting the plates from the 5 or 6 validators we had at the counter and service desks and locking them up in the safe at night. The worst part was that a couple of our validators were rather hard to change the date on and often times I would go stamping tickets only to realize that someone earlier in the day didn't change the date and would have to practically break my thumbs to get the numbers to roll over. That, and you know when someone was using one as there was a loud whack that echoed down the entire ticket counter. So glad that electronic ticketing has eliminated those things from my life.
NorthstarBoy From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 1713 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (9 months 1 week 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 1657 times:
Tickets back then (and still today) were considered to be accountable documents by ARC (Airlines Reporting Corporation) which controls the distribution of ticket stock and the collection, remission, and distribution of money from ticket sales. TWA probably would have had to send in the auditor's coupon from the paper ticket and if the ticket had been canceled or revalidated, the number of the stamp would probably have needed to show on the ticket or ARC would have considered it to be an invalid transaction. The number of the stamp itself was probably registered with ARC, and they'd compare the stamp number on the ticket with the stamp numbers in their records, and again, if the number didn't match, they might have considered it to be an invalid transaction and TWA would not have been paid.
That's my educated guess having started my travel agent career back when the E-Ticket didn't exist and everything was done on paper.
I could have elite status if I wanted it, but flying the same airline all the time is boring.
Sponsor Message: 
From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 5670 posts, 
Printer friendly format 
