You are right, there's a number of pax (some of them on FT) with personal connections to LH management. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those guys (would be nice, though). It's human that the well-connected individuals look down on those who cannot bend the rules and need to deal with the regular call center.

Luckily, I'm well-connected in a different way, mainly thanks to FT. This helps me getting things done even w/o the intervention of any LH staff, thank you very much.

Btw, I can recommend the new U.S. M&M Senator Line in Ontario (Canada), opened in February 2007. It's staffed with competent and helpful LH people, no Bertelsmann folks. They go strictly by the rules, but at least they seem to KNOW then, and if not, they look them up right on the spot.