Originally Posted by
8420PR
My 2 cents: LH telephone agents are much more constrained in rebooking than airport staff. Ultimately they seem to be bound by the ticket booking conditions whereas airport staff have much more flexibility.
I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but I can understand it may be a surprise to US passengers, as US airline call centres do seem to have a lot of flexibility.
Luckily for the OP, he's a GS, so he most likely get very good service from the GS phone agents. If the OP wants to see true incompetence, try being a UA General Member and have to deal with the agents at the UA call center for the "common people".
Those agents may have the flexibility to make the requested changes, but that doesn't mean they can accomplish it in less than an hour and without needing to involve supervisors, the ticketing desk, and a few more people.
That is incompetence.