Originally Posted by RobertS975
Think this through... why not make it easier for the very FFs of other airlines to reach your airline reservation center?
Two reasons:
- It's expensive to pay competent people to answer the phones quickly, and they'd need more.
- It would be difficult to figure out who is elite and who isn't. When I call NW I put in my FF# and PIN to be able to reach the elite lines. The other carriers don't know my PIN, and I'm not sure I'd want NW sharing my Worldperks PIN with the call centers at every Skyteam carrier (remember, Skyteam isn't just DL/CO/NW, but also includes SU/KE/AZ/etc.). Therefore they'd need to create some sort of unified Skyteam Elite verification system, which doesn't currently exist, and would probably be a serious challenge to implement.
That said, I too wish I had access to the elite call centers at DL and CO. I can't tell you how frustrating it was when I was NW Plat and got stranded in ATL at 2am in August, 2005 during a big thunderstorm. The hold time to speak to someone in India (who then disconnected me trying to transfer me to the right desk) was close to an hour, and the queues to speak to an agent at the airport were even longer. I would have killed for access to the DL Medallion phone lines (although I imagine even those were swamped).