Award difficulties deliberate?
May 23, 2015, 9:13 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: PDX
Programs: Alaska Airlines, CO Emeritus, United kettle, Ural Airlines Wings, Hilton, National
Posts: 979
Award difficulties deliberate?
I moved to Alaska, AA and Delta last year following the degradation of the UA mileage program. I was just attempting to redeem my last 300000 miles for a set of economy tickets to Japan, and I don't even know what to say. I was paying to do it over the phone as it is a complicated routing that I found, and the difference between when I was last flying with United is pretty glaring.
No one seems to want to helpful on the reservation lines. Two times the minute I told them the flights I needed, they said "oh sir, we can't plug in information point to point. You just need to give us the destination, and the one even said I needed to pick the route they suggested. I know their are some bad apples, but this was six different calls. It seemed like they deliberately wanted to make sure the award reservation wouldn't happen. One told me they couldn't do award reservations that early (it was less than 330 days), the other said when the website didn't work it meant the routing was bad, so I couldn't use what I had found. (the multiple destinations fail, but the one way routings are all there. I also had three hangups.. just random.. usually after I explained where I was going. I started a little self examination. Am I doing this wrong? I am very polite, should I let them find the routings and then agree with it when they find it? It didn't used to be a big deal. After the sixth actual call, that wasn't hung up on, I started feeling this was deliberate. I am sure its not, but it feels that way.
End result, I am so glad I left. I am sure maybe part of this is just what everyone went through without status? Any one have any tricks? Times to call to get a better crew?
No one seems to want to helpful on the reservation lines. Two times the minute I told them the flights I needed, they said "oh sir, we can't plug in information point to point. You just need to give us the destination, and the one even said I needed to pick the route they suggested. I know their are some bad apples, but this was six different calls. It seemed like they deliberately wanted to make sure the award reservation wouldn't happen. One told me they couldn't do award reservations that early (it was less than 330 days), the other said when the website didn't work it meant the routing was bad, so I couldn't use what I had found. (the multiple destinations fail, but the one way routings are all there. I also had three hangups.. just random.. usually after I explained where I was going. I started a little self examination. Am I doing this wrong? I am very polite, should I let them find the routings and then agree with it when they find it? It didn't used to be a big deal. After the sixth actual call, that wasn't hung up on, I started feeling this was deliberate. I am sure its not, but it feels that way.
End result, I am so glad I left. I am sure maybe part of this is just what everyone went through without status? Any one have any tricks? Times to call to get a better crew?
May 23, 2015, 9:24 am
#2
Join Date: Jan 2012
Programs: UA Gold MM, HHonors Gold, Hertz Five Star Gold, Marriott Gold, Avis First
Posts: 462
Theory on this board is that agents are evaluated based on time spent on each call so some may try and avoid complicated calls.
Try calling late at night that will increase your chance of getting HNL based agents.
Try calling late at night that will increase your chance of getting HNL based agents.
May 23, 2015, 10:09 am
#3
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: LHR (sometimes CLE, SFO, BOS, LAX, SEA)
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 5,893
How complicated was the routing you found?
I've never exactly had trouble getting agents to accept segment-by-segment inventory for award ticket bookings, but I have also developed a strong sense of "is this person a good agent" that I can usually spot within the first 5 sec, and if I get a bad feeling, I ask about something innocuous like flight status and politely hang up. Maybe 60% of the people I talk to are good at taking inventory, maybe 20% of them are really good at ticketing it.
Even if you can feed the inventory to someone and build the record, it can be difficult to get agents to ticket itineraries that don't autoprice.
It is often easier to book a reservation that contains roughly the outline you want and then change it by phone. I think this triggers a different path both in agents' heads and also in the software.
I've never exactly had trouble getting agents to accept segment-by-segment inventory for award ticket bookings, but I have also developed a strong sense of "is this person a good agent" that I can usually spot within the first 5 sec, and if I get a bad feeling, I ask about something innocuous like flight status and politely hang up. Maybe 60% of the people I talk to are good at taking inventory, maybe 20% of them are really good at ticketing it.
Even if you can feed the inventory to someone and build the record, it can be difficult to get agents to ticket itineraries that don't autoprice.
It is often easier to book a reservation that contains roughly the outline you want and then change it by phone. I think this triggers a different path both in agents' heads and also in the software.
May 23, 2015, 11:02 am
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2006
Location: SEA or BGR, Lower Earth Orbit
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 17,217
I just booked a trip from SEA-RGN for my mother in law this week. It was painless, and I was able to find low award travel.
When you start to make complicated itineraries, with specific stops, on multiple carriers, yeah, it is going to be a bit difficult. There's a lot of "behind the scenes" things that none of us are privy to, and make a difference on what flights, and carrier combinations, are and are not available. In the end it is no worse than trying to play the fare game on paid travel.
When you start to make complicated itineraries, with specific stops, on multiple carriers, yeah, it is going to be a bit difficult. There's a lot of "behind the scenes" things that none of us are privy to, and make a difference on what flights, and carrier combinations, are and are not available. In the end it is no worse than trying to play the fare game on paid travel.
May 23, 2015, 11:06 am
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Houston
Programs: UA Plat, Marriott Gold
Posts: 12,693
I've only made one complicated award booking post-merger, and my impression is the tools the agents have to work with are really bad. I found all the availability ahead of time on UA.sux and verified it as best I could on ANA's site. The call took about an hour and a half to book a 10 segment award and a 6 segment award, or a little over 5 minutes per segment to reserve and price.
So if you call up looking for a multi-segment ticket for multiple people, the agent may be thinking "how is this hour long odyssey going to tank my call stats" if they're being measured on call time.
Since your calls mostly didn't even get to your desired routing I'm skeptical that's your problem, but I'd like to see your routing anyway.
What carrier combinations cause problems?
With the fare game on paid travel you can use high quality tools (ITA software, google flights, hipmunk) for your research and reservation forming. No such luck with award travel.
So if you call up looking for a multi-segment ticket for multiple people, the agent may be thinking "how is this hour long odyssey going to tank my call stats" if they're being measured on call time.
Since your calls mostly didn't even get to your desired routing I'm skeptical that's your problem, but I'd like to see your routing anyway.
When you start to make complicated itineraries, with specific stops, on multiple carriers, yeah, it is going to be a bit difficult. There's a lot of "behind the scenes" things that none of us are privy to, and make a difference on what flights, and carrier combinations, are and are not available. In the end it is no worse than trying to play the fare game on paid travel.
With the fare game on paid travel you can use high quality tools (ITA software, google flights, hipmunk) for your research and reservation forming. No such luck with award travel.
May 23, 2015, 1:32 pm
#8
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: ORD
Programs: UA Silver, Marriott Platinum/LT Platinum, Hilton Gold
Posts: 5,594
I mentioned that I thought they got something new just a couple years ago and she said this was supposed to be better. I didn't dig further as she was really chatty. No idea if she was referring to a tool specific to awards or just a general SHARES overlay...or if she even knew what she was talking about. She was, however, a very good agent who got the reservation fixed (some problem with lap child) and ticketed in just a few minutes.