I had a bunch of BE points that were going to expire, ended up using them to book one leisure award, booked the same flights for my wife using miles. The itinerary was far from desirable, but since it was more than 6 months out, I decided to take the chance, set a series of expert flyer alerts.

When a more desirable routing appeared for the outbound, I called the PLT line, had no difficulty making the change. A desirable routing for the return became available today; after being on hold for more than 10 minutes while the change was being made, the agent claimed that there would be a $150 charge for the BE award, as the rules differ from mileage awards, the first agent should not have made the change.

Does anyone else have experience with this? We are going to try again, at a different time of day, see if that makes a difference.

ALSO: Will I run in to the same issue with a same day standby?