<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by PineyBob:
Whether it is the car salesman of the reservation agent the person will do engage in the behavior that is most beneficial to them personally or to the company they work for.
Res agents are IMO poorly trained so that most people will not know the rules, including that agents. It preserves profits. they receive bonuses based on number of completed, calls not number of satisfied customers. </font>
What? PineyBob, you are something like a "sales trainer', right? "...the person will do engage in the behavior that is most beneficial to them personally or to the company they work for ..." Sorry, I don't want to hard your feelings - Those are the "sales-technics" of the 50's, 60's, 70's.
Next, I have had very, very professional reservation agents (also when booking award flights). With BA and with Delta, especially when you ask for an agent for partner airlines. They took all the time to book an overseas award flight with open-jaw and stop-over. May be I was just lucky.
BTW, anybody can make mistakes. If I get a wrong respond, or what I think is wrong, I ask the agent to check with a colleague and/or supervisor. And yes, I always take a note of the name, and address the agent with his/her name.