The Aeroplan Agent Who Kept Calling

With Award Expert taking the bulk of my time, I find myself on the phone often. The more valuable the loyalty program, the more often I interact with it. That means I am on the phone frequently with Aeroplan. While Aeroplan has many problems that require serious attention, one thing it has going for it is competent, kind agents. That was once again my experience earlier this week.

The Aeroplan website is broken so a simple itinerary of Los Angeles to Split via Stockholm on SAS did not show up, even though it was a short, logical, and legal connection. Hold times were terrible, as usual, but after 45 minutes I reached an agent and explained the issue.

He quickly located the space and priced the itinerary, but unfortunately by that time I had boarded a flight and the aircraft door had just been shut.

While he could have simply said, “Sorry, call back,” he instead did something that I am very grateful for–

“Sir, I know you’ve been holding for a long time so what I’ve done is created a file. Let me know your number and I will call you back when you land. When will that be?”

Talk about customer service! I provided my flight info and he provided the reference number and gave me a specific time in which he would call. I’m a cynical person and figured he would not call back but at least I had a confirmation number and could call back.

I reached my hotel, checked in, and settled in my room. 15 minutes later, precisely at our agreed upon time, my mobile phone rang. It was the agent.

Now if that was the end of the story, that would be commendable enough, but there’s more.

Aeroplan requires that credit card information be punched in over the phone rather than be read to the agent. We tried multiple times, but the system was not picking up the input from my cell phone.

Again, the agent could have simply said, “Sorry, call back and start over,” but instead he offered to call the hotel where I was staying. I provided him the telephone number and my room number.

It took a few minutes but my phone rang: the agent apologized for the delay and said the front desk had hung up on him the first time. This time the system recognized the credit card and we completed the transaction.

Now granted it would have been far preferred to have a website that actually worked, but I was again pleased at how the agent went the extra mile for me. Aeroplan agents are not given much to work with, yet rarely fail to impress.

Have you had similar experiences with Aeroplan?