What a contrast this week in flagship airlines. I had a OW award ticket booked using AA miles on CX (BKK-HKG-JFK), with a ticketing deadline of last Monday -- the day of the AA reservations meltdown. I actually did stay on hold for a few hours Monday evening after AA came back online, to no avail, and sure enough, on Tuesday morning, AA told me the res was cancelled. The agent was particularly obnoxious about it too, I should add -- zero apologies for the hassle, and nastily "well, our system was ONLY down for 5 hours--you had an opportunity after that to ticket it."

I did call back and try to get someone else to talk to CX, someone who was not snitty but was unsuccessful. I could have tried harder afterwards, but actually had to get work done that day instead of spend longer with AA -- and the next day was able to get an award on the date I wanted on JAL via NRT anyway.

Contrast that to my wonderful customer service experience with CX buying a PAID CX ticket the other direction (JFK-HKG-BKK). I called CX Tuesday to make the res, and they said they'd hold it for 24 hours. I wasn't ready to pull the trigger, figured it cancelled. I just today got my voicemail where CX CALLED me Friday late afternoon, to ask if I still wanted to book it, and saying they'd hold until Sat morning. I just bought it -- from a delightfully professional, courteous thorough agent.

I'm not the flyer many of you are, but never heard of an airline calling back before cancelling a res!