I don’t know when I am going to practice what I preach, but I could not help but to argue with an AA reservation agent on Saturday. As always, it was to my own detriment.
Here’s the story. An Award Expert client wanted a one-way ticket from New York to Porto and had AA miles. The only space available was on British Airways via London.
Small problem (besides the high fuel surcharges): the layover was about four hours. While I would have used the time to take a shower or check out one of the new Priority Pass restaurants there, the client just bought a flight on TAP that cut the layover to 90 minutes.
Thus, I called AA back to remove the segment and ticketed the reservation over the phone (the agent offered, stating that she would not charge the telephone booking fee).
Done. The ticket arrived. Or so I thought. The client said everything looked good, but he didn’t look at it closely. Turns out the segment from London to Porto was never removed. This was discovered during online check-in. I called AA back to again remove the segment, thinking it would be easy. It wasn’t.
The Phone Call
With only one day prior to departure, the agent claimed the courtesy cancellation/change waiver didn’t apply. It would be $150 to remove the segment. While I would have just skipped it, the client was checking a bag and I did not want to create any potential issues.
I am 100% sure I asked to remove the segment and the agent confirmed it was removed. When the agent seemed to think I was making it up, I should have just thanked her and hung up. Instead, I started arguing.
ME: “What do you mean I did not remove the segment? Why would I call AA instead of ticketing online if I wanted to leave the segment untouched?”
AGENT: “I don’t know sir. You tell me.”
ME: “But you see that I called in to ticket this right? I called into remove the segment.”
AGENT: “I see that you called, but you could have just done that online.”
ME: “Ma’am, no you cannot. Once an award is on hold, it cannot be modified online. That’s why I called.”
AGENT: “SIR! I’ve been working for American Airlines for 29 years. Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
ME: “Ok, show me how to make a change online.”
AGENT: “Sir, you just have to go into the reservation and click change.”
ME: “Where is that?”
AGENT: “Right there on the website. Trust me, I know my job.”
ME: “You’re wrong on that. Are you really going to tell me that you cannot help me and that I am responsible for an agent error?”
AGENT: “Yes. I have no way of knowing who is telling the truth.”
ME: “Do you have a recording of the call? Please review it.”
AGENT: “We do not.”
ME: “Can I speak to your supervisor?”
AGENT: “I am a supervisor.”
I should have hung up far before the conversation reached this point, but I just hung up.
I called right back and found the agent had already left a nasty note on the reservation. The next agent claimed her hands were tied. So I asked to be transferred to the original agent, waited on hold for her, apologized for hanging up on her, and I paid the $150 change fee, figuring I would write AA customer service.
Now I’ll send this to American Airlines. Let’s see if customer service listens.
CONCLUSION
Watch out for Pamela at the Dallas Southern Reservations Office (SRO). She displayed poor customer service and exemplified everything that is wrong with AA’s impotent Executive Platinum desk. If I were wrong, I’d have no leg to stand on…but when an agent makes a mistake, AA should own up to it. I’m so disappointed.
And yet I’m a fool for arguing with Pamela instead of finding a reasonable agent who would ask herself, “Indeed, why would the customer call to ticket a reservation he could have easily ticketed online…unless he was calling to change it?” I also should have checked the ticketed reservation instead of taking my client’s word that everything looked good.
For the record, you cannot change a booked award reservation online. Sorry Pamela.
I’m sorry, Matthew, but *YOU* are the one who comes across arrogant in this situation.
When ever I call customer service (of any company) a make a brief note of what the conversation was about. I include name, date, time and brief synopsis of the call. If the agent says which location they are based in, I note that as well. It has been a huge life saver when situation like this arise.
Love. That. Poster.
“When I’m on the phone, American’s reputation is on the line.”
That’s sort of the biggest issue in having to call in to any company. There’s no easy way to prove what you called about unless they review the recordings which is hard to get them to do outside of threat of a lawsuit.
When it comes down to it, AA is shooting itself in the foot anytime they make someone HUCA. It clogs the phone lines and ultimately increases their staffing levels all because of their poor training programs and arrogant culture.
I’ve been a United 1K for 10 years. Last year I also earned Exec Plat from a few expensive flights. I went into it open minded but the airline is just a disaster. I’ve never had to wait more than 10 seconds on the phone to get through to a 1K desk agent. The American hotline routinely puts me on hold for 20 min. Gate agents fail to upgrade elites. I’ve never landed in LAX TPAC and had less than a 25 min wait for a gate. That ridiculous LAX regional terminal sucks and makes connection times huge. Business class on AA is totally forgettable. Food in domestic first is so bad I don’t order it. Why anyone flies American is a mystery to me.
I am also 1K on UA and EXP on AA and I have to take umbrage with one statement. “Business class on AA is totally forgettable” – now hang on just a second. I would agree that the catering is abysmal, though at least they put out the snacks on the 77W which it appears with UA is happenstance. But that seat… come on, man. United is still flying 777-200 aircraft with 2-4-2 in business class. Eight across in business class? How is that still in service? And I am not talking about trans-con or random routes, Newark to Delhi when I last shopped it featured 2-4-2 on a 12-hour flight. How does that beat 1-2-1 with direct aisle access? Even the 787 which I flew to Shanghai last year, a relatively new plane, had 2-2-2 business class. You’re telling me that for $5,000 someone is going to step over me while I sleep, or I am going to have to step over them to get up in the middle of the night? I won’t argue that United’s soft product is better, but hard product? I would welcome an argument in favor of United’s product over American’s.
1-2-1 is just 8 across in disguise as well.
I may be the only one but I really don’t mind the pmUA seats (the pmCO ones that took over suck big time).
I really hate foot coffins.
@Kyle – Yes the 2-4-2 seats in business are bad, but the flights to India are s-CO and are 2-2-2. The 2-4-2 s-UA 777s seem to be the first to Polaris-ized so hopefully they won’t be around much longer!
I think you crossed a professional and ethical line by naming the agent. The rest of the post is a narrative; a difficult interaction and how you chose to approach that situation and, while of limited value as a “lesson learned” meets your presumed intent in sharing. Obviously, there’s some venting there as well, which is your prerogative. However, given your platform and dissemination reach, I’m of the opinion that calling out the agent in this manner was ill-considered.
Paul, I believe that the agent should be held accountable for her poor service. In my experience, this is not protocol and her actions were unnecessarily combative and mean-spirited.
Publishing an employee’s name in a public forum isn’t holding someone accountable, its public shaming and potentially opening them up to harassment and ridicule. And while I have no reason to doubt your account, there are always two sides to any story. Your account doesn’t convey tone or attitude in the words you wrote which may mitigate, though not excuse, the agent’s behavior.
There actually aren’t always two sides to every story. I never heard that tired old and false idiom nearly so much as I hear it on travel blogs and flyertalk. In fact, those are pretty much the only places I ever hear the expression — someone posts “x happened to me on an airplane” and everyone comes out of the woodwork to say “there are two sides to every story.”
Actually, there are facts and there is truth, much as the world seems to wish to pretend that truth is actually relative. The fact that you don’t know whether a blogger is telling the truth or inventing something doesn’t mean there is not truth. These are different things.
+1 Larry! I, too, am sick of “there are 2 sides . . .” No, there really is such a thing as the truth. In this day and age, when everything is digitally recorded, if I say “I spoke with Pamela about 3 p.m. on x date” they should bloody well pull it up and let Pamela and her supervisor listen to it (or ME if I’m wrong about what I claim occurred.)
Ha! Name and shame ’em I say.
Agreed…Id’ing the agent is not appropriate…and quite infantile. In addition, it is likely that for most who comment, their company is paying the bill. In which case, whining is nothing short of ingratitude.
So, was your client an EXP or are/were you trying to work your status for commercial advantage? Just curious.
Not your best look, tbh.
Client was Plat but I was connected to EXP desk.
I’m actually a bit surprised AA allows award booking service providers to act as agents for their customers for a fee. (Or maybe all you guys are travel agents?)
I always assumed that most providing these services called up and pretended to be the customer instead of actually acknowledging what they were doing.
I know it would send ripples through the community, but I could definitely see airlines starting to crack down on this. F AA were to add a term making it a violation of the program rules to pay to have someone else redeem one’s miles, or something like that, it would be a pretty significant issue because while finding the awards is a significant part of the service, dealing with the airline to redeem is also a significant part.
This post strikes me as really poking the sleeping bear. I could see posting about this experience if it had been your own travel, but naming an employee who gave you bad service on a transaction you were pursuing for a fee on behalf of their actual customer seems unwise. To be clear, I am a fan of award booking services and am not suggesting you did anything wrong here, but if AA were to decide that highly knowledgeable commercial entities who charge and blog are a problem, I have little doubt they could bring a hammer down. Discretion might be the better part of survival here.
“I’m actually a bit surprised AA allows award booking service providers to act as agents for their customers for a fee. (Or maybe all you guys are travel agents?)
I always assumed that most providing these services called up and pretended to be the customer instead of actually acknowledging what they were doing.”
Same here, have always wondered how this is done and which airlines allow a third party to book and manage flights on someone else’s behalf.
I don’t think you were tough enough. When things started going south you needed to tell her you’d be posting her identity and a transcript of the interaction on your blog if she didn’t drop the segment.
Unfortunate, but this is why it almost never pays off to call the EXP line, if that is even a thing these days. IME, the agent who takes the call seems no longer to be dedicated to EXP, but rather whoever is next in the queue for receiving calls. As such, the service level has definitely declined.
To that end, I try to get to the airport early and resolve ticketing issues at a Admirals Club. I realize that this would not help if you’re booking on behalf of a third party, but the agents there still actually go above and beyond to resolve issues or at least they get the right people on the line to resolve them.
Sorry this happened to you! How did you realize that she wrote a nasty note on the reservation though?
Next agent told me.
It must be because I am a travel agent myself that when I call the airline asking for something if I don’t hear what I want to hear I just oh my mistake and hang up. But then again I also note every conversation in sabre with the agent I spoke with their call center date and time of the call and phone number I called from. With those pieces of information they can pull the recording which all AA calls are recorded and Pamela was probably not a supervisor of other agents. I found that is a common conception that supervisor is an expert in the job. Often they aren’t. Often it’s called a lead. It also may have been if it was an AA flight operated by AA it may have been cancellable, but a BA flight purchased on AA paper may not be accessible to you. It’s one of the challenges with codeshare and getting award tickets. Sometimes once a codeshare award is redeemed, there is no refund of milage. Just cancellation of the segment. BA has some really “special” rules that make like interesting.
I think this is not the right way to talk.
American Airlines is a big airline how can their agents talk like this.
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