As a long-time lurker, I would like to thank the posters in this forum for many hours of entertainment. In particular, Cathay Boy deserves special recognition for his involvement in several amusing interactions, such as the "brain fart" incident:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...ignorance.html

Now to the topic of this post: my first call to the Marco Polo Club. The goal was to change the return date of a long-haul LAX-HKG roundtrip in business class. Earlier, I had already changed the return date once online. After that change, which required less than 5 minutes, I discovered that the "Change My Booking" link had vanished from the "Manage My Booking" application. As a result, I could not change my itinerary a second time online. Is this normal?

Having read about the long hold times for a Green member calling the Marco Polo Club, I was reluctant to call. Taking the advice of the CX FAQ on this forum, I called after Hong Kong business hours. An agent picked up at just under 10 minutes on hold. He spoke English with a Cantonese accent and was polite, addressing me as "Mr. Dork."

He first asked for my record locator. After stating that he had found my itinerary, he asked whether he could place me on hold, but did not give a reason why.

First hold: about 10 minutes.

When he came back on the line, he asked what the new dates were. I told him just to change the return flight, and gave him the new date. He placed me on hold again.

Second hold: about 10 minutes.

When he came back on the line, he said there were two HKG-LAX flights on the new date. (This was incorrect. There were three on that date, but I refrained from pointing this out.) He asked which flight I wanted. After I responded that I would like the same flight as on the original date, he said his computer was having trouble, sorry, and placed me on hold again. At this point, 30 minutes had already elapsed on my call, and 20 minutes had elapsed from when I first started speaking to the agent. However, I remained polite.

Third hold: about 20 minutes.

After the 50-minute mark, the agent came back on and apologized several times. Despite passing the time by reading posts in this forum, I had about run out of patience. Still, I remained polite. He stated that he was going to change the date of my flight now, and placed me on hold again at about the 55-minute mark.

Fourth hold: about 4 minutes.

He came back on the line a little past the 59-minute mark and said he had changed my return flight to the new date. After I thanked him, he responded, "Thank you for calling." I said "Goodbye" and ended the call.

The fare for the business-class itinerary was about 6,000 US dollars. In total, the MPC agent spent 50 minutes changing the date of my return flight. Is this normal?