Yesterday I used the online chat with an agent for the first time and was pleasantly surprised. For some reason I was not able to complete a booking using an e-certificate and got the pop up window for chatting with a live agent. He was able to take my information and complete the booking in a relatively short amount of time. Apparently my e-certificate needed to be manually applied.

However, today I wasted over a half hour chatting with two agents about trying to change an award reservation. The first agent took all my information then said she needed to transfer me to an international support agent. Once I was transferred I proceeded to provide the information again. After another 20 min on hold the agent basically said he couldn’t do anything and that I needed to call the international help desk. I asked why and he said he wasn't authorized to make the changes. Would have been nice if he knew that at the beginning.

So based on my experience it does really seem like the online agents are merely web support and have limited capability in making changes/bookings.