I have this new pet peeve that is just really under my skin this week. I cannot imagine a group more aware of the rules and subtleties of travel than we flyertalkers are. Yet, lately I am seeing more and more customer service people who are offering completely dismissive explanations that turn out to be completely wrong to resolve my problems. My personal belief has always been that I am fine with someone just admitting when they don�t know the answer, but I am getting so many people who are just making up an answer, hoping I will go away.

Here are three examples from just this week:

1. I fly Delta at least once a week. I always buy the ticket from the Delta website and I get a 1,000 mile bonus for the roundtrip ticket. Pretty straightforward. The bonus always posts within 48 hours. This week it posted, but it was only for 500 miles. I called Delta SMS and was told by the agent that it takes up to two weeks for the bonus to post and that it should fix itself. I know that she was just making it up. I even said, look at the last 30 flights and notice that they posted within 48 hours for 1,000 miles. Clearly, this error could have easily been fixed. My theory is that I took a bump on one segment and was booked into F so I am assuming that the system didn�t recognize my taking the last segment. Again, very simple fix. But I was told that I have to call her back if it doesn�t fix itself within two weeks. It won�t.
2. I just checked into the Hampton Inn in Rocky Hill, CT. When I did, I asked them to add National Car Rental as my Car Partner for the 250 point HHonors bonus. The lady at the front desk made a big deal of the fact that I need to add it to my profile if I want to get the bonus. I explained to her that: A) you can�t because the bonus is an individual bonus that you are only supposed to get if you rent a car and B) I am both very tech savvy and fairly aware of my frequent traveler program quirks. She said that I need to call HHonors and that it makes it inconvenient for the front desk to have to add that bonus each time.
3. Had 3 HHonors stays post on the same day from a weekend of travel in 3 different cities. On two of them the 250 point online booking bonus posted; in one it was missing. I have had this problem in the past when the property had to modify anything about the room. So, I called the Diamond Desk and was told that the online booking bonus would take up to 2 weeks to post. She said that the bonuses don�t post with the stay. Again, I said to look at the two that posted with it and explained what had happened before. Same deal. I�ll have to call back in two weeks even though I know the problem will not magically fix itself.

Is this just happening to me? Just because I am a paranoid doesn�t mean that they aren�t out to get me, right?

I can do you one better:
AA Flight 91 from LHR to ORD a couple of weeks ago. Very hard landing--flight attendant said it was the worst she'd ever had on that type of plane. Cargo door gets jammed (may not have been related to the hard landing, but we assumed it was). They had no idea when they'd be able to open it. Customer service person from AA decides to not only make up AA policies, but to completely fabricate US laws. We're stuck in that customs DMZ between passport control and customs for nearly 3 hours with no idea when we'd be able to leave. In that time, she tells us:
1: We couldn't leave. If we leave we will "never" get our bags back. An hour later she concocted a rule that one person from each family could stay and one could leave, "so long as they have the same last name." I can see the theory that the last name should match the bag last name, but they did not check to see whether your bag tag matched your name, as they never do.
2: people with connecting flights were released 20 minutes in advance of their flight departure and told to "make a run for it" and AA would deliver their bags to their homes. When we asked why AA was making a distinction between people travelling on and those in Chicago, she had no explanation except to tell us that if we left, they would not hold our bags at O'Hare and let us pick them up the next morning or deliver them to us--if we left the premises we forfeited our bags. Where do suppose that is in the CSR handbook?
3: It might take until 8:00 a.m. the next morning until the full mechanics team gets in. (Flight landed at 7:00 p.m.)
4: There were a number of elderly people and small children on the flight. She told us it was "illegal" for AA to try to bring bottles of water or any snacks to us. Another person on the plane had a similar thing happen 6 months earlier when they did bring snacks and water. He said he saw no one being arrested.
5: A number of people had family waiting in the parking lot or at home. If you called AA, you were told the flight landed on time, so they'd have no idea what was going on. And, if it did take until 8 the next morning, they wouldn't know to go home/go to bed. We asked if we could use cell phones (an exception to the general rule due to the circumstances). The AA person said that if we did we would be "thrown in a jail cell for 3 days before they have to let you see a lawyer and all your bags will be confiscated and destroyed." That is not even close to what the law allows in such a circumstance, and when I went and asked the police officers whether we could use cell phones, the response was "of course"--they even let people leave the area to walk to a window to get a signal and then come back in. One police officer even told me "this is American screwing with you. It's total BS."
6: I specifically asked the CSR whether AA knew what was going on. She said they did. I called the platinum desk--AA had no clue and said they showed everything was done and fine with the flight. Within 10 minutes of my calling the platinum desk, 3 supervisors came down. Still no water, no apology, nothing, just supervisors saying "we care about you." Not enough to get a chair for an elderly woman who was having trouble and was having to sit on the baggage carousel railing. Miraculously, though, within 45 minutes of my calling the plat desk the door was open, giving the impression that perhaps it became more of a priority (they powered the plane down and up or something) once AA (outside of ORD) knew what was going on.
7: the best part--the CSR kept saying, "FYI: We still can't get the door open." "FYI: it might be until 8 tomorrow morning." FYIs with no apologies aren't the best way to handle an angry mob.

I still haven't sent a letter to AA about this, but as we did not receive any apology, any miles, or anything, I'm planning to. They at least need to retrain that particular CSR to not create US laws and AA rules out of thin air.

It's not just you. I notice this more and more often as well.

I posted a long rant on the Marriott board about a customer service issue a week or so ago. (Disclaimer: I consider Marriott my single favorite major travel chain - counting airlines, cars, and hotels - and ordinary find their service perfectly acceptable.)

I was looking to book an award stay in April '06. All of the nights were available except one. Since the night in question was a Sunday night, and since this was a suburban Residence Inn that in reality is probably a ghost town on Sunday nights, I called customer service to find out if (a) there was some unique demand situation for that one night that meant that I really shouldn't get my award, or (b) there was a system problem of some sorts.

The agent started by saying "Award rooms are subject to availability." OK, yes, I know that, but can you look at this specific situation and explain what's going on? "The hotel has no award rooms available, including rulebuster awards. Perhaps it is sold out for that night." No, I already looked. There are rooms available at normal rates, and in fact I suspect that there are a lot of rooms available. This is a suburban Residence Inn on a Sunday night. I was calling to see if there was a system problem or if you could tell that there is some special event taking place there. I suspect a system problem because Monday night is wide-open for awards, and people don't typically travel to one-day conventions that take place on Sunday nights and Monday mornings before noon. "Award rooms are subject to availability." OK, I know... "The hotel has no award rooms avail...." OK, OK, I know!!! I'm looking for some thinking, some logic, some explanation as to what's going on! "Award rooms are subje..." Thanks...I'll try back later...have a nice day.

Fortunately, I'm an FT'er ^ , and we Marriott fans have some great support on that board. A well-informed poster (who I won't name here, because I don't think he acts officially for Marriott) sent me an explanation of exactly what type of glitch is taking place in the system and why, after a phone call to the hotel, I may be able to get my award. But it was very frustrating that nobody in an official capacity - either at regular reservations or on the Marriott Gold line - thought "Gee, that's kind of an odd situation. Let me look a little deeper into what's going on here and see if it's really a sellout situation as opposed to some sort of system-related issue."

Same here. Become Platinum in early Aug. 2 Aug flights didn't get the PL bonus. Emailed Sept, told to wait. Emailed Oct, told me it'll be fixed. Emailed Nov, again will be fixed. Emailed last week, told any time now.

just wondering how come we have to "earn" our keep for our awards that are due to us.

perhaps they're hoping that the general population forgets about it and they make money that way, just like some mail-in rebate refunds do.

Too, companies are getting very hostile to having to employ ANY people in customer service nowadays. If they aren't sending the jobs to India, they're still paying them far below a living wage, getting high turnover and doing woefully inadequate training. Once you take the job off a career track and pay close to minimum you'll get much higher turnover, less skill retention, lower caliber people and not much fear of losing the job, since it's likely a stopgap anyway. This has been a problem for a long time with award-travel bookings of complex itineraries or anything where people have to call repeatedly to get someone knowledgeable.