American Express Membership Rewards - NINETY MINUTES TO RESERVE A CAR! Platnium and Centurion is absolutely horrible!

The "plat" travel is by far the worst service, I have ever encountered.

Not one bad agent. As a new Plat cardholder, I have called about six times. Every time, save ONCE, the telephone representatives has been absolutely horrible!!

Tonight's encounter was akin to a SNL skit or parody.

I wish I had a copy of their tape for quality assurance.

If I took the time to type the entire tortured, protracted transaction you would not believe me anyway.

I will amend my post when my blood pressure lowers.

But what I would like to know is am I alone on this?

I do not expect the efficiency of as if it were my own personal assistant. But, this has now been a 75 minute transaction. The phone call was a total of an hour and a half. Truly ninety minutes. But then again I should cut Amex travel some slack. :confused: After all this was a complicated, intricate request. I was after all asking a travel agency that promotes its Limo program to send a car with five days notice to pick me up on the upper Westside of Manhattan, drive about an hour to Morris Plains NJ. Wait for me and drive me back to the same address in Manhattan

The supervisor did share some interesting info. Apparently, there are a lot of new people.The same people deal with centurion holders as well. American Express is putting any warm body in front of a phone with no training. Training after all costs corporations money. Why train workers who get paid a living wage, when you’ve grown accustomed to an available labor pool in at a mere fraction of the cost in other English speaking countries where the wages and cost of living are substantially cheaper.

What do other people think?

Where is the Value added in using Amex Plat travel to reserve a car service?
How is this an enhancement to my lifestyle? :confused:
What benefit, other than triple membership reward points ,do they bring to the table?

I guess the only people using this service are large corporate execs who have a full time Secy to hold on the phone and waste time.
Its embarrassing that this administrative assistant costs her or his employer ( and stockholder) about $75 ( cost of salary+ payroll taxes+ health insurance + everything else) to make a car reservation so that her boss can get a few extra M.R. points. It boggles the mind.

Well, if it's any consolation, you're not the only one burned by the service level of PTS. See this recent thread--PTS is lousy (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=535115)

In general I've found them pretty decent with routine requests, but go outside the boundary just a little and everything falls apart from there. Arguably, though, and as you point out, since this is supposed to be a "premium" service, you should expect service that goes outside the boundaries. I've wondered myself what kind of value they think they are offering if PTS can only do routine tasks that you could easily do yourself without paying the premium.

Hint: If you are lucky enough to find a competent agent, ask them for their direct extension and call that specific individual. There are a few gems at PTS in a sea of duds.

Its intresting that they need to "verify" You , actually interegate you in rote, protracted fashion, put you on hold and call the Carey limo.

Why can't they coordinate an on line booking engine internally between Amex travel and their two vendors for car services.

I'm suprised that this thread (maybe its pride of authorsip :) ) has not generated more intrest.

Does the FT community think that 75 minutes to reserve a car and fifteen minutes venting to a supervisor is acceptable to reserve a car?

I could probaly have called Carey myself cold with no relationship what soever and accomplished the reservation in about 7 to 10 minutes. Once they had my info on file subsequent reservations could take about 5 minutes.

I had to bump a few threads.

I just laugh and reserve not through some lowly credit card's limo reservation service, but rather, directly with the people who provide the actual service and know about it. Paid just $120 or so AUD both ways from the SYD airport to my hotel downtown. Pays to do your homework on the web well in advance so you arrive relaxed etc. :)

Sanosuke!