Eastbay1K

I used the IAP for the first time for an upcoming SFO/TLV trip. Decent savings. DL ticket / AF flights. Given the current state of quarantine affairs upon TLV arrival, and given the DL waivers, I tried to rebook. I packed lots of patience for this endeavor.

Monday AM, I called and waited on hold for about 30 minutes. No biggie. They offered a callback service but I was going to be busy for a while. So, I hung up.
Monday, mid afternoon, I called, and callback wasn't offered, so I was optimistic that the hold times were shorter. Sitting at my desk, working, I waited 2.5 hours for the agent to answer. After a half hour, she determined that the DL waiver didn't apply (and indeed my particular waiver disappeared from the DL website for a short while), and after a total of 3 hours, I ended up where I started, except instead of me making dinner, someone else had to get some take out to bring home.
Momday night, I decided to call again. I got a nice agent, but she had to get a DL agent to help her - so I thought. She said her hold times with DL were pretty short, so I was optimistic. After about 90+ minutes of hold, someone else answered, someone who had no idea who I was or why I was calling. Very competent agent, but it took her some time to find my particular waiver rules, and what not, and then found same class availability on flights about a month out. And then, there were ticketing issues. The system isn't recognizing the change fee waiver. She keeps placing me on hold and won't let me "go" and she'll call back. I'm on the 3rd hold. Apparently everything is rebooked, but not reissued. I'm now 3 +hours into this call.

I wish I could have just canceled this trip, but that wasn't an option. In fact, the IAP fare went down, but they won't refund the difference on the change (which is ok).

So sorry I called tonight. First agent seemed like she was working on it, so I didn't want to hang up. Instead she just sent my call to another queue where I waited 90 minutes. Second agent seems like she knows her stuff, but what a time for system glitches and needing the help desk. I'm familiar enough with GDSs to know that one letter, dot, "pillow" sign, or something else can make things all wonky and not function, but ... to not be able to work on it without me on the phone?

Legit hold time during a crisis is one thing. I'm up to a total of 6.5+ hours on the phone with AX today.

And the main reason for this post is to keep me awake during this nonsense.