and waiting longer and being more upset makes you go elsewhere and that costs them the money they tried to save!

It's a matter of short vs long money. Many companies are going for the short money, sadly. It's trickling down from the similar attitude of the 8 year administration in my opinion.

As for India, etc, I think the CSRs are trained very well... in the way of policy and by the book rule-oriented speak. They know not, however, of special circumstances, one-off issues, and many of our detailed mileage issues and promos. I think it's partly because our culture is more in tune with the whole world of mile deals being done the way we do them, and the ways to fix problems that may come up with these offers. I find the agents from overseas have NO CONCEPT of what all that even is! To them, it's " you sign up for X and get the miles. If you did not, oh well. Sorry." To us, we'd complain and maybe rightfully so. They don't complain enough over there. Airlines like them.