The CockRoach folks know that I dropped out of their group because I saw a huge "move it back East" movement there and I see that as a quick step into the grave for this or any company.

I have been burning the BM miles like crazy as I have spending my or my employer's dollars with them because of their major move to PHL (UGH!) and NC.

Last year we booked a US/OZ Star Alliance trip for the upcoming Dec/Jan and here on FT I documented how rotten the service was with the exception of one very good female CSR in NC out of many, absolutely helpless Cust Svc people in Mexico, and finally getting several good people in Tempe to take over when I invoked industry connections.

After 50+ calls, 240+ hrs on the phone we were finally able to book a Star Alliance Biz class RT for three of us. However, the US flights from PHX to LAX stuck us in Coach. Back in March (we started in Dec!) I told my wife to drop it for the time being and call back closer to the flight. So she called the Gold line tonight and the call was taken in NC. My wife was very friendly, explained that we would like to try to get upgraded (she's a cust svc mgr so empathizes with call center folks) and immediately was on the receiving end of a rotten attitude. I pulled the phone from her before she let loose and told the CSR to leave us in Coach. It was the CSR's way out of the call. She then gave me more attitude "so you booked this in Feb knowing you were in coach and now you want to make a change? Why do you feel that re-ticketing the entire trip is a problem?"

I had no answer that was friendly, so I told her to leave the itinerary as it is (which I will check in Shares in the morning to make sure she didn't deep six us) and thank you for your support you wonderful NC sweetheart, BYE! CLICK!

That's why this merger died. No tough love mgmt in customer service, no quality monitoring with penalties for rotten service and everyone is stuck with the wonderful, ever loving care of those that are east of the Mississippi. No thanks. See ya US! Want to stay in business, keep customer service with those who give a rat's arse. Out of all of those hours of calls to NC, I had one (1!) good call. Mexico sucks wind. I like PHX and RNO. But US continues to send West folks East where we get attitude. Hence pulling my biz from US and moving from 1M miles to 84,000 and trying to burn those ASAP.

Good luck with getting that old US back. Wonder how that will work for ya?
Have fun Roaches, I have no love lost on this airline that moved West to East to become worst.

On a lighter note, hope to see you on some PHX-FRA runs on AA this Jan-Feb. ;)

After 50+ calls, 240+ hrs on the phone ...

Seriously? You spent 10 DAYS on the phone with them? What was the problem? Availability?

I only ask because I just had a (relatively) painless experience booking a *A F award. Took 4 different calls, all less than 15 minutes, because I was booking at the 330 day window and kept pushing back the return. The Gold line was picked up on the first or second ring every time. I came prepared with flight #s and availability info from the ANA tool. It was invaluable.

I have also left US because of customer service reasons - so I certainly don't doubt your frustration. But your story sounds a little extreme.

Sorry for the late reply, I'll be fair in that the difference was that we were booking three people in F or C, shooting for at least two of us on the same flight with one near. I understand the difference between one and three on award.

And yes, we had all of the seat availability, flights available through both ExpertFlyer and ANA. I also have other access to this info, but won't go into that here.

So your experience and ours definitely should have been different.

My issue was with the extremely belligerent attitude of their CSR given that we were being very friendly and helpful. It appears that US is pushing everyone to the brink. And the question is brink of what?

It's too bad you got someone with attitude. your wife should know - it's hard to get a fully staffed call center to be 100% friendly all the time. CS jobs are often transitory because they don't pay well and people take lots of crap. that's why so many companies have outsourced - they're cheaper. At least you got attitude in English :)

The other irony about CS work is that one person's horrible place to call may be someone else's wonderful place.

I'm not a big fan of outsourced call centers, but the mexico city call center has always done good things for me. They booked me and my wife on a *A biz class flight 24 hours before departure without trouble.

Hopefully what you got was the exception, not the rule. US is still one of the best airlines to call compared to the ICCs that other airlines use.

If you left then why are you still here? Once your gone, you shouldn't care. And I would never spend 240 hours on the phone, thats just not worth it - suck it up and pay for a ticket on another airline. For the price of a 10 day phone call, you could have just bought a ticket on Delta or AA or something.

It's too bad you got someone with attitude. your wife should know - it's hard to get a fully staffed call center to be 100% friendly all the time.

I've never had a problem with Winston-Salem, nor did I ever have a problem with PIT, nor SAN.

It was not until Manilla, Mexico, San Salvador entered the equation that I began to have serious problems with US call centers.

I've never had a problem with Winston-Salem, nor did I ever have a problem with PIT, nor SAN.

It was not until Manilla, Mexico, San Salvador entered the equation that I began to have serious problems with US call centers.

... offshoring was a bad idea from previous management. The current group's cutover to SHARES produced a marked decline in the East centers - almost overnight.

... offshoring was a bad idea from previous management. The current group's cutover to SHARES produced a marked decline in the East centers - almost overnight.

If you get one of the East centers. The best case scenario for Golds and below (I've not been CP since shares) is getting a West agent (presumably in PHX or RNO) since they know SHARES.

I'll be interesting to see if Dougweiser was serious about onshoring res call centers again, or if it was lip service.

The CockRoach folks know that I dropped out of their group because I saw a huge "move it back East" movement there and I see that as a quick step into the grave for this or any company.

I have been burning the BM miles like crazy as I have spending my or my employer's dollars with them because of their major move to PHL (UGH!) and NC.

Last year we booked a US/OZ Star Alliance trip for the upcoming Dec/Jan and here on FT I documented how rotten the service was with the exception of one very good female CSR in NC out of many, absolutely helpless Cust Svc people in Mexico, and finally getting several good people in Tempe to take over when I invoked industry connections.

After 50+ calls, 240+ hrs on the phone we were finally able to book a Star Alliance Biz class RT for three of us. However, the US flights from PHX to LAX stuck us in Coach. Back in March (we started in Dec!) I told my wife to drop it for the time being and call back closer to the flight. So she called the Gold line tonight and the call was taken in NC. My wife was very friendly, explained that we would like to try to get upgraded (she's a cust svc mgr so empathizes with call center folks) and immediately was on the receiving end of a rotten attitude. I pulled the phone from her before she let loose and told the CSR to leave us in Coach. It was the CSR's way out of the call. She then gave me more attitude "so you booked this in Feb knowing you were in coach and now you want to make a change? Why do you feel that re-ticketing the entire trip is a problem?"

I had no answer that was friendly, so I told her to leave the itinerary as it is (which I will check in Shares in the morning to make sure she didn't deep six us) and thank you for your support you wonderful NC sweetheart, BYE! CLICK!

That's why this merger died. No tough love mgmt in customer service, no quality monitoring with penalties for rotten service and everyone is stuck with the wonderful, ever loving care of those that are east of the Mississippi. No thanks. See ya US! Want to stay in business, keep customer service with those who give a rat's arse. Out of all of those hours of calls to NC, I had one (1!) good call. Mexico sucks wind. I like PHX and RNO. But US continues to send West folks East where we get attitude. Hence pulling my biz from US and moving from 1M miles to 84,000 and trying to burn those ASAP.

Good luck with getting that old US back. Wonder how that will work for ya?
Have fun Roaches, I have no love lost on this airline that moved West to East to become worst.


Best wishes at AA...so long.

The best case scenario for Golds and below (I've not been CP since shares) is getting a West agent (presumably in PHX or RNO) since they know SHARES.

It was a sad day when the old AWA 800 number stopped going straight to PHX!

As someone who started flying US and HP at the time of the merger, I just do not get people's nostalgia for US-East customer service. By and large, I have had abysmal experiences with East, and fantastic experiences with West.

That may just be from too much connecting in PHL. The low point there was probably when the gate agent's response to my comment that the flight about to depart C17 was listed at B8 was not to make an announcement, but rather to tell me that "the monitors are evil."

As a Plat every time I called it would go straight to PHX; as a CP it goes to Winston Salem. International Awards seems to be Mexico City. I've had great success with all three of those.

now call the general number and you may get Manila or other places - that's when the trouble starts.

Still, I think US call centers, even the offshore ones, are still SO much better than UA's India Call Centers where basic English skills seems to be optional and customer service is non-existent....

As a Plat every time I called it would go straight to PHX; as a CP it goes to Winston Salem. International Awards seems to be Mexico City. I've had great success with all three of those.

now call the general number and you may get Manila or other places - that's when the trouble starts.

Still, I think US call centers, even the offshore ones, are still SO much better than UA's India Call Centers where basic English skills seems to be optional and customer service is non-existent....

I have to differ with you here, at least with regard to UA's India call centers. I personally have never had trouble when my UA calls have been directed there. English is an official language of India and perhaps it is their pronunciation of English that may be challenging for us to understand.

My only experience with a US off-shore call center resulted in a split reservation from my Gold traveling companion, removal of my CP number from my reservation, a loss of an upgrade, and my e-ticket being changed to a paper ticket. It took a 20-min. phone call from a ticket agent at LGA to the US Help Desk to fix the mess that this call center made of my reservation.

The CP desk used to be wonderful all the time, but there are times I have called this year where the agents didn't know how to book or hold regular domestic tickets or redeem vouchers. That desk was put at a real disadvantage during the cutover to QIK/SHARES and it has taken them some time to get back to what was once CP-level service.

I think being a Plat might be better in that calls go to agents in PHX who completely understand QIK/SHARES.

I have to differ with you here, at least with regard to UA's India call centers. I personally have never had trouble when my UA calls have been directed there. English is an official language of India and perhaps it is their pronunciation of English that may be challenging for us to understand.

In my experience, the problem with UA's Indian call centers has nothing to do with language barriers. The problem is that agents have zero familiarity with air travel and the domestic airline industry. I once spent nearly half an hour fighting with one of their agents who insisted that an eight hour SFO-LGA itin he was proposing was nonstop, not direct. He had no concept of:

the difference between nonstop and direct flights,
basic US geography (I was changing *from* an SFO-BOS nonstop -- if he had some clue where LGA and BOS were, he'd know that a nonstop flight to LGA wouldn't take 3 hours longer)
the LGA perimeter rule.


While this is entirely understandable for someone who lives halfway across the world, it is unacceptable in an airline CS agent.

I have found that UA's ICC is fine if you are doing something simple. My only experience with US's offshore call center was when I was trying to redeem a BofA companion cert, and I found the agent to be extremely ineffective. It took her almost an hour to figure out what to do.

Lack of adequate training and geographical knowledge, coupled with a language barrier, are a recipe for customer service disaster.

In my experience, the problem with UA's Indian call centers has nothing to do with language barriers. The problem is that agents have zero familiarity with air travel and the domestic airline industry. I once spent nearly half an hour fighting with one of their agents who insisted that an eight hour SFO-LGA itin he was proposing was nonstop, not direct. He had no concept of:

the difference between nonstop and direct flights,
basic US geography (I was changing *from* an SFO-BOS nonstop -- if he had some clue where LGA and BOS were, he'd know that a nonstop flight to LGA wouldn't take 3 hours longer)
the LGA perimeter rule.


While this is entirely understandable for someone who lives halfway across the world, it is unacceptable in an airline CS agent.

I agree with you. I guess I have been lucky that I have never had that problem, especially given the fact that my UA travel usually originates from ROA or TYS! :D