Originally Posted by
luckypierre
I do believe this ex perq was a half baked attempt on UA's part to not only rein in the really abusive awards but also try to reduce the time that agents were spending on trying to construct these awards..."just got off the phone after 3 hrs." Not sure how valid it is, but read somewhere else on FT from a reader involved in call center business that a norm is 6 customers an hour.
"Half-baked" is a good word for it.
Most of the time I ever spent on the phone booking awards was because (i) the system was slow (how many times have you heard that one - "sorry the system is really slow today"), or (ii) the computer failed to autoprice an itinerary that was well within the rules, resulting in lengthy back and forth with the rate desk.
I have no problem with UA killing the stopover at origin or imposing reasonable transfer restrictions. As usual, they picked an incredibly messed-up way of fixing the perceived "problem."