My perspective also and I suspect in a similar way. To that end, I will mention that we must also consider ourselves among the lucky ones, to be able to see what we have available and, well, Carpe Diem.

On the second note, I’ve maybe mostly just been lucky (I did just say we’re among the lucky ones, after all!), but when I’ve called several of the airlines over the last year, I’ve had the message that the waiting time is some number of hours, only to have the line picked up within a number of minutes. This happened with AAdvantage, with BAEC, among others. It very much surprised me, and has happened more than once with each.

I still would not choose to put myself in a situation where I expect I need to call to sort things out, as each time this happened, it was a call I was dreading, as time was short and waits said to be long. But on those occasions where it became inevitable, the waiting time, more often than not, has been less than advertised, often much less. Even SQ, which was a disaster for me in the first weeks of the pandemic (needed to cancel a redemption but literally spent hours not getting through, only to get cut off and have to start all over again), on my most recent call warned about long wait times, but answered quickly. I do wonder sometimes if some airlines are putting out a message that discourages people calling in, even to the point that they say the wait will be much worse than it even is.

I’m pretty much never able to do the “call back when it’s your turn” option as I’m nearly always on a VoIP call and don’t even have a reliable number to offer for a call back once I do get through to someone.

Enjoy your journey, value your time. Bon voyage.