Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
I've noticed exactly no difference in service. Had two reasonably complicated things to do through the Gold line in the past few weeks with agents. Everything went smooth as butter, calls got answered promptly, follow up emails came through as I expected.
Sample size of one.
Definitely noticed slower/wonkier response times over the past year or so. Last night, called on the upgrade-waitlist-doesn't-show-companion glitch. Told wait time time was 2-4 minutes. HUACA after 15. Told 3-6 minutes, but did the callback option. Received nearly immediate call back then waited another minute or so. (By comparison, up until about a year ago, my calls were almost always answered immediately by helpful human.)
Disagree with OP about quality of CS, which is normally competent and friendly, though on the call last night, was told (after a long hold) that that's the way the system works and "sometimes the companion's name shows up on the waitlist and sometimes it doesn't," which is an interesting feature if it's not a bug.