toyotaboy95

Just had the pleasure of experiencing the long hold. When I called today (29 November 2010) at 5:40PM, both the Hong Kong Asia Miles and Marco Polo hotlines were busy (couldn't even get to the menu) but strangely their Putonghua service (+800 938038) wasn't busy at all.

After trying for 10 minutes with the Marco Polo hotline (27475500), I finally got through to the menu where I selected English and was put on hold for 50 minutes (with Robbie Williams singing and the occasional "you are placed in a queue, it may be faster to use cathaypacific.com...." message), until an agent could come and change a sector on my award booking (which took 2-3 minutes).

percysmith

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11))

Realised what GR status really means - GRass. You get trodden over by anyone who has an iota of real status for the phone service and most other things.

And I'll stop yelling hypocrite over the phone every time the IVR "faster to use cathaypacific.com" when MPO restores upgrade availabily monitoring on that site.

Connecta

Sorry for pulling this thread up again, but thought it's more suitable than creating a new one...

I'm GO and VERY satisfied with the MPC pick-up time (almost instantly) if there's no busy signal.

However, it takes me AGES to get through CX Reservations at 2747 1577... 1 hour 17 minutes so far from my office phone. I tried to dial in with my mobile phone in parallel to see whether another option gets picked up faster, but to no avail with 19 minutes... Just when writing this, someone picked up from my office phone line!

Does anyone know any quicker option to issue already reserved tickets on phone? MPC always emphasizes that they can't do it, but can only process redemptions (e.g. reserving J redemption seat via MPC hotline, then have to call CX Reservations with no Elite tier prioritization for booking/issuing). It's especially weird when knowing that I could be physically in their call centre within maybe 15 minutes...

Have just issued my tix before the next fuel surcharge hike - otherwise I would have given up already and tried another time/day

kchika

You can always ask MPO to connect you to 1577 but I don't think they have a special line to get through either.

I've been to their ticketing office in OT for a couple of times now. There's no special MPO line unlike the old days at the Peninsula, so you could be waiting for some time before actually getting served. Once you're at the counter though, they're usually really quick, although I had to remind the agent of the DM hotline when I asked her to ticket to upgrade for me

Connecta, did you go with CX or BA in the end?

Connecta

Thanks, Kchika. Have asked MPO on previous occassions to put me through, but had still to wait for quite some time. So don't think that status is being carried over (especially, since I had to tell them everything from scratch).

One would assume that they would prefer pax to book with CX directly instead of through TA, but that appears to be limited to online booking only...

I went with CX at the end. Connection time on BA was a bit short in case of delays and can't afford to miss the LHR-HKG leg. Will update in the other thread. This particular ticket issuance was actually for a private trip on HKG-JFK-HKG, not using our corporate TA.

percysmith

Okay today's my first daytime call back as GR, since my PRC-travelling colleague's been grounded for the past 18 months and failed to retain SL status.

Have to check a complex routing for a colleague trying to fly to ZRH in J in December solely on Asia Miles. It'll involve multiple partner airlines.

Having been trawling ba.com for a while, found a routing that works on BAEC. It involves flying HKG-LHR on BA Club World, LHR-ZRH in BA Club Europe, ZRH-LRH in BA Club Europe and LHR-HKG in QF J.

A call's to MPO's necessary to validate the routing on AM, find out the number of miles and try to get a quote on tax if possible. Boss not in today so I was able to call MPO today during the daytime.

First call started at 4:41pm, English was selected (by accident). Was connected at 6:00pm (79 minutes) to a very unhelpful CS who refused to key in the actual routing no matter how pushy I got. She quoted the miles required as 120,000 and tax $5,991.

If I got a crappy CS with one of the card companies I'd hang up before I started swearing and get another CS - this came out of months calling the Australian Tax Office for clients during my undergrad years. However I flinched at the thought of another 79 minute GR wait for another CS, and tried to milk this CS as much as I could.

Eventually nothing could persuade her to actually key in the routing so I hang up and started again. Got through again at 6:38PM (28 mins) - I really suspect some Travel Agents hog up the line (but which?! I really like to know). This CS was a lot more helpful - he started keying in the routing as soon as I read it out from ba.com, obtained supervisor advice as to whether three legs on BA and one leg on QF is okay (he came back 10 minutes after saying it was). He even expertly pointed out that I don't need 120K AM to redeem this - it's a OneWorld redemption that backtracks a bit and so miles required is only *115,000* AM. The only thing he didn't do is to quote tax (I can generate this on ba.com myself...EDIT 7:22PM - HK$3,801).

percysmith

I might not need that silver number after all

Called MPO 2747 5500 to check upgrade availability for parents - cannot check via cathaypacific.com

Cantonese - three rings - voice message for call back that never happens
English - one ring - voice message

Mandarin - three rings - get a very polite Beijing operator. No availability but at least he was very quick about it. Searched +/- 1 day availability for me without complaint. Even hang on when my boss walked in on me and I literally have to put down the phone.

percysmith

Just tried to show an auntie the mandarin line but couldn't get through. Mandarin line performance isn't as consistent on weekends as on weekdays.

Edit Mon 11 Jul 10:45AM: Mandarin line going straight through again - so Mandarin line's only really good for office hours.

Cathay Boy

Just curious: are they native Mandarin speakers or Cantonese speaking in accented Mandarin?

percysmith

Beijingers http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...ticket.html#10

CX HK

Calling as a Silver, been very satisfied; either the line doesn't connect, in which case I just hang up and try again, or the call is picked up within seconds. Very interesting!

percysmith

Never experienced any problems getting someone to pick up when using my colleague's silver number; green members are treated very differently.

CX HK

Interesting - I'm curious as to whether it matters if you are dealing with your own booking / account, but you call using the account number of someone else (with a higher tier).

percysmith

MPO will not let you manage your own a/c if you used someone else's a/c to get through.

However 80% of my calls are to check for upgrade availability, a partner airline routing and/or a complex routing availability, so I don't need to access my own account.

CX HK

Ah - thanks for clearing it up. Got me a little excited there (thinking I can freeload off a friends DM #), but it makes sense.