I was initially of the "its the integration thats causing the problems", but honestly, at this point, theres something seriously broken here, and seems to be getting worse before getting better.

I honestly do not think it is a staffing issue, but instead something truly broken with the phone system itself. I am going to try and describe what happened to me, pardon any rambling.





Yesterday evening, around 5pm EDT, I called the United Club line, as I have yet to recieve my United Club Card, after being approved for the Presidential Plus card on 2/14, and recieving the card 2/22.

Inital greeting was "Thanks for calling United Club", then the woman's voice telling me the call centers are very busy, then a recording telling me "Thanks for calling MileagePlus for Premere Executives, please hold"... About 6 minutes on hold (with hold music voice overs from Mr. CO voice, all pre-integration, telling me the merger is in the early stages, etc) a rep answers the phone "MileagePlus" -- And despite Initially recognizing my former status, the rep did not know who I was, and asked for Mileage Plus number and PIN.

Come to find out Chase has yet to notify UA, so I call Chase, who says they will call United and call me back. Chase calls back a half hour later, and claims to have called UA, and everything is fine.

Not trusting that everything went okay, I call back this morning. Same first greeting, plus the "we're busy" woman. However, hold music starts up, and is "current". A total of 1:45 (hours and minutes goes by, and a rep answers the phone "United Club Customer Service". Only asked for Mileage Plus number, no PIN. Kicker is that Chase did not do things the right way last night, and they still do not know I am club eligible.



So I call the club line two times, get directed to two different spots, and wait times are dramatically different. Phone system half recognizes me once, and not at all the other. Something is obviously up here. It sounds like they tried to glue the two phone systems together, and failed miserably as a result.


Might I suggest UA look at US's phone system, where I have no status, which greets me by name every time I call, and after telling it what I want, connects me to an agent who then answers, "Thanks for calling US Airways Mr. kwildnj, how can I help you with (insert whatever I asked for help with)?