The Best Time to Call Aeroplan?

Aeroplan hold times have historically been so horrible that even Aeroplan admitted it in a recent ad campaign—

The only problem? Wait times are almost as bad as before. Aeroplan states–

Truthfully, while this may have happened in the past, we have since upgraded our system so your wait time should be shorter.

Unfortunately the upgraded phone system has not solved the underlying problem that Aeroplan simply does not have enough agents to handle the volume of calls that arrive each day. The culprit is one employee trying to do the job of two.

Aeroplan continues–

But why call at all? You can book a flight online and through the Aeroplan app! We have also worked hard to offer you a wide variety of self-serve tools so you can get the help you need right away.

Sure sounds nice, but the website does not work as it should. I just outlined a recent (positive) Aeroplan experience that only happened because the website was broken.

>> Read More: My Plan for Fixing Aeroplan

The Best Time to Call Aeroplan

The best time to call Aeroplan is between 3pm-5pm ET each day.

To understand the best time to call Aeroplan, you must first note that the call center is closed from midnight to 7am ET each day, which is inexcusable for a travel company that large in 2017. As as a result, wait times are terrible early in the morning and late at night.

Aeroplan has two call centers: one in Montreal, one in Vancouver. The Montreal call center starts the day out and “holds down the fort” till until the Vancouver agents show up. Thus, calling is the morning is usually horrible because the call center is at half strength.

Same in the evening. Somewhere early in the evening the Montreal call center signs off leaving only the Vancouver call center to deal with worldwide callers. Compound that with the limited hours and evenings are usually even worse than mornings.

But there is a brief window each day — I find it between 3pm-5pm ET — in which most of the Vancouver and most of the Montreal agents are working and thus hold times tend to be much less than usual.

Just yesterday I picked up the phone at around 4pm ET and waited only five minutes for an agent. That’s pretty amazing considering I waited over 90 minutes for an agent the night before.

CONCLUSION

Aeroplan’s labor distribution and limited office hours create massive bottlenecks that can ruin a perfectly good day. Avoid the headache by calling between 3pm-5pm ET. It may not always save you time, but chances are it will.