If you use the North American 800 number, and you call during North American business hours, your call will automatically route to Vancouver. That's what you want.

Now, if you call during the North American nighttime, the call may route to Hong Kong -- I don't know. But having a specific agent work on your behalf out of the Vancouver office seems to help all this stuff: you can exchange e-mails directly with your helper to speed up things rather than having to call back and ask for that specific person (who may be on another call anyway).

Over many years flying with SQ, I found the same thing to be true -- they have a San Francisco ticket office, and can handle anything locally, avoiding all the overseas outsourced call centers..........................