Much to my delight, I have been up late the last few nights booking awards for people and have been on the phone with United quite a bit.
Without any equivocation, I have to admit that the every single phone call has been smooth. No StarNet blocking, competent and friendly agents, and the quick assembly of what have often been very complex, multi-segment itineraries.
Of course it always helps that I already know what flights I want before I call, but that hasn’t stopped reservations agents from being grumpy, indifferent, or pathetically ignorant in the past. But even my calls to India this week have been handled with professionalism, accuracy, and punctuality. I had an eight-segment itinerary I wanted to book this evening and almost hung up when I reached the Indian Call Center–but the agent spoke crisp English, quickly found my desired flights, and booked them. Calls like that have taken 30-40 minutes in the past, but I was off in ten minutes tonight.
I blog about this tonight because I have heard a lot of talk recently, particularly on Flyertalk, that the service quality from UA call centers has taken a nose dive. I simply post this to offer a data point that suggests otherwise. Good service is alive and well at UA Reservations.
I had a similar experience this week, as my one segment on AC forced me to call in, and it only took my two explanations to explain what I wanted to do with my routing, especially with one of the segments being on a Coach only flight, with the rest in First.