Consultette

Over the past two days, I have made three calls to the EXP desk - all with subpar service.

First call: asked to be transferred to the US CP line since I was having US Airways IRROPs. Instead of sending me to the Chairman's desk, I was transferred to the general US phone queue where I had already waited for 40 minutes before hanging up to call the EXP desk. Ending up hanging up and walking to the ticket desk at the airport (yes, ticketing) for service.

Second call: agent argued with me about whether I could be upgraded on US flights at the airport. Told me I could not. Then proceeded to tell me to book my reservation online. I was calling because the aa.com website was not working.

Third call: agent was unable to help me reserve seats on the flight I booked through aa.com. Ended up needing to wait for the website to start working again.

All sounded outsourced. I really hope this is not what the EXP desk is coming to.

JonNYC

Not outsourced.

Here's one of a few threads where people pretty comprehsively shared notes on this subject:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html

arlflyer

First two just sound like general merger issues that everyone is dealing with. AA (and US) agents are being woefully underinformed across the board on developments and new features. Prime example being reciprocal upgrade.

Regarding #3 - who is the operating carrier?

Pinned

I've called a few times in the last month or so - most calls were great. There were one or two agents I could not understand due to very thick accents, one of them didn't seem to understand much of what I was asking - I politely ended the conversation and called in again in those cases.

Dr. HFH

To me, all three of these are merger issues unless #3 is an AA metal flight.

arollins

I agree completely. Merger issues creating confusion internally among AA/US employee. I have nothing negative regarding the EXP desk, actually praises all around. However, I do agree that when you are dealing with a mix AA/US itinerary! there seems to be some mis-communication all around.

george 3

My calls recently have been excellent. Getting on wait list for JFK LHR and back flight and WXD cancellation rebooked from Aa metal to US metal. Kudos to both teams.

fotographer

Never really had an issue with the EXP desk, sure sometimes it takes a few call backs to get an agent that I feel comfortable with, but other than that, quite happy with the service.

Wollstonecraft

My last few calls have been annoying. The last one I had the impression I was dealing with a US person instead of an AA person.

I had originally held a US-EU sAAver award online, which priced correctly at 30k. This was SEA-LAS (AS), LAS-ORD (AA), ORD-Europe (AA). The flight into LAS arrived at 11 pm and the next flight out was not until the next morning. I called in because the I wanted to drop the Europe segment and just have it be a domestic sAAver award. The agent immediately told me it would be 25k or two sAAver awards because of the stopover in LAS. After some argument, she agreed that it was not a stopover but it took about 20 minutes of typing and calling other desks for her to resolve it and get it priced correctly.

I was surprised. This seemed like it should have been a simple fix. It feels like a sad day when I need to more aggressively practice HUCA with the EXP desk.

Consultette

Yes, that is exactly what my past three calls have been like. They have been at various times throughout the day, so I know it's not just that I was getting "the night shift" or something. All had very heavy accents and we could hardly understand each other. I have NEVER had this problem before the past few days.

re: Others' posts: yes, the first flight was a US flight, as I was simply looking to be transferred to their elite desk, should be irrelevant. The second and third calls were regarding a mixed AA/US itinerary.

FightingIlliniUAL

Its been status quo for me - great as always.

Only odd issue on one call is that I had to hold for about 30 seconds to get an agent

flyalways

Hi there,

I have had nothing but good experiences with EP Desk. They are always
helpful. Last week I called them multiple times for requesting to open
U class seats. One inconsistency I found was that some agents said
they now have no ability to make such requests and some did it without
any issues...I expected some consistency in the policy..

The contract CI agents at Pudong/Shanghai are sub-par. Not sure if it was
their language skills but they just came across as incompetent, do not
pay attention, no CS skills (smile, greetings). No helpful at all !

F.A.

JDiver

This has been a long standing refrain, particularly since they closed LAX, later BDL and then TUC. Agents were told they could relocate or work as international reservationists from home, a la Morris Air.

That meant a slug of new "EXP" agents - possibly selected by longevity and not skills or knowledge? - who seem to be pretty amotivated and unskilled. The EXP agents I used to ask for by name are all gone.

With the merger, I suspect we are in for rather more of this than less.

Exec_Plat

In general, they are ok. Nice enough. But over the years a definite decline.

On occasion I will have a highly technical issue- usually with intl business fares, fare rules, etc. requires fare desk, manual effort, etc. sometimes it is clear I know way more. ("We just go by the computer"). Some of this are newer policies they are given. Still disappointing....

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

Yes. I've also experienced this a few times, where when dealing with lap child fares, I've had to correct them. When I apply SWUs, they sometimes try to charge me a change fee to the adult when a lap child is attached. One lady told me it was a new rule. When I called back, they said that wasn't true and reversed it. This happened twice on two different international itineraries.