I needed to rant. I had two simple tasks to do today -- book one open-jaw roundtrip award ticket with NW, and one open-jaw roundtrip on United using US miles.

Call #1 to Northwest. I provide info. I want to go MSP-SFO-BOS. Agent is surly. "That is not an open jaw," she states. "Why not?" I ask. "You have to return to your origination city." Bulls**t, I think. I do the hang up and call back again trick.

Call #2 to Northwest. I provide info. I want to go MSP-SFO-BOS. Less surly, but still mean. "You want MSP-SFO-MSP?" she asks. "No, I want MSP-SFO-BOS." "I can give you SFO-BOS," she says. "I would like to take a redeye on Delta," I said. "That flight doesn't exist," she says. "Yes it does, I say." I give her the flight numbers. "Oh. Well you can't do that anyway because it's not an open jaw." "Why not?" I ask again. "Because you're not returning to the city you left from." This time I've had it. "But an open-jaw by definition on the policies published in all of your documentation as well as on your website allows you to open the jaw either at the origin or the destination." Click. She hangs up on me! At no point was I rude or obnoxious -- but she certainly was to me!

Call #3 to Northwest. Agent is friendly. Arranges everything perfectly. Everything is perfectly fine. Ticketed.

Call #1 to US Airways. I want to book a ticket on United. I give info. "You don't have a saturday night stay so it will cost 40000 miles." Oh...forgot about that. "I'll call United then instead." The agent replies, "it won't matter, they require saturday night stays too. You'll have to pay the extra miles no matter who you book through." I reply "I'm pretty sure United has no sat. night stay requirement." She says "I'm pretty sure they do." Whatever. I say goodbye and hang up.

Now, is it just me or do the vast majority of these agents either 1.) have no concept of proper customer service, or 2.) are completely misinformed yet tell us bald-faced lies as if they were scripture? Who trains these folks? It is really sad when passengers know more about the rules than the representatives of the companies that make the rules. And it is totally out of hand that it took 3 calls at Northwest to finally get a semi-friendly, competent agent capable of doing something without grandstanding, making things up, or hanging up on their customers.

Frankly, the culture developing at the big airlines clearly does not include either competence or customer friendliness. I am incensed.