Originally Posted by Fly Me To The Moon

I just want to highlight another pleasant (or unpleasant, depends how you see it) experience with the Cathay Call Centre. As noted upthread, I had made a few calls to Cathay recently. During one of those calls, I entered my MPC number, was recognised as Diamond, and got a live agent after a few minutes on hold. The purpose of the call was to verify I could change a flight on one of my bookings, without any change fee. This query was handled quickly by the agent; she was polite and helpful.

I then asked the agent to assist with another booking, which actually was for my boss and his wife's upcoming flight from Perth. I gave the agent the PNR. I said that I was authorised by my boss to handle his travel bookings (which is true). In this instance, it was a redemption booking. The problem was with a cancelled Wed PER-HKG flight, and my boss and his wife were rebooked one day early, to Tues. They are unable to leave Perth earlier, so I called to request protection on a flight after the cancelled Wed one. The agent checked, and advised that PER-HKG is only Tue/Fri/Sat, but the Fri/Sat flights had no award availability until a Fri TWO WEEKS later. Of course, that was unacceptable, so I further pushed for the agent to speak with someone to release two seats into award inventory. She was helpful, and raised a case number under the PNR, and then put my boss and his wife on waitlist for the desired Fri and Sat flights. The agent took down MY contact telephone number, and said that she would respond by Friday, 03 Mar. Honestly, the agent was very helpful, but thoughout this entire conversation, she did not ask me a single security question to verify my credentials to operate this booking. I am also sure that my name (which the agent would have seen when she first helped me with my booking) would not have been attached to my boss' account as an authorised representative. Every time in the past, while calling into to Cathay on my boss' behalf, I have always been asked the four usual security questions of boss' birthdate, mobile, email, redemption list member before the agent would proceed to answer any booking queries or even to touch the booking.

Today is 01 Mar, and the same agent actually called me back. She called my office direct line and asked for me by surname only (this direct line was not the contact number in my boss' account). I answered the call, and the agent then told me that she had been successful to get two award seats on the waitlisted Fri flight. She asked if I wanted to proceed with the change, and of course, I said yes. However, once again, this agent never verified my identity or credentials; she simply made the requested changes to the booking.

Although the agent was helpful, I have never experienced such lack of concern for account security before. Anyone else bump into this before with any agent?