Good evening all,

Now that I have had a moment to cool down I thought I would ask for advice from the board.

While attempting to book 2 tickets this evening routing MSP-TPA for the 30th of this month returning 5 August, and using 30K miles to secure each ticket in FC both ways, NWA.COM gave me a fare of something like $33x.xx per ticket plus the 30K miles per. I was attempting to also use a credit voucher from an unused ticket from May but the site won't let you use miles to upgrade and a credit so I had to call in to the NWA.COM support group for assistance. After 45 minutes on the phone with this guy he xfered me to RES who quoted me now $43x.xx plus the miles to UP. $100 more that what I had. He told me that was all he could do despite me telling him that I had something different. I then tried to reprice it out on my end and got $10xx.xx and 20K miles to upgrade. Clearly something was wrong so I asked for a sup.

He put me through, after another 10 minutes of hold, to a Seattle sup who started out for the most part pleasant but went downhill very fast. I explained the entire situation to her and her response to me was to all but call me a liar as it pertained to the fare I was telling her I saw. When I mentioned that I have been a loyal elite member every year for the past 12 and that I am not a once a year flyer and know how fares work she responded with, and I quote, "I am sick and tired of people like you, silver elite members, calling in and demanding lower fares than what we quote, badgering the reservations people to offer you something lower, do you think we would not offer you a lower fare if one was available?" I was absolutely speechless after that. She asked me if I wanted her to book the ticket or another ticket and my response was no. I thanked her for being so ever helpful and pleasant and hung up, informing her that I would be calling customer service in the morning.

Has anyone ever experienced something like this from res, let alone a sup in res? I am sparing you all some additional comments she made to me as it will sound like embellishment or that I am flaming NW, which I am not.

I am normally one of the first people to defend NW, but this was way over the top tonight.

Again, please let me know what you would do in my shoes at this point.

Thanks.

I would definately use TTU but without booking a reservation the chances of them finding the exactly person is very slim.....try to be as specific as you possibly can though....the supervisor was out of line (thankfully Gold's and Plats never speak to anyone other than the folks in Chisholm or Minneapolis)

I had similar ticketing experience 3 weeks ago but it was with CO where I found cheaper tickets online while the agent could not see the price even with the identical routing and fare buckets. I believe that I was transferred to the internet or customer support. CO agent did not call me a liar though, as he was able to see what I saw after requesting me to start over again and book till the credit card step. However, he was still unable to get that fare for me and he had to type and change the fare rule on his end in order to get me the same deal. The overall process took over 30 min and I thought I was unlucky, but hearing your case......wow.

In this case I have the persons full name and what city she works in. I do plan on following up with NW.

This is clearly an inappropriate response on our supervisor's part. In January/February of each year, I travel to each reservation center that handles Elite member call volume to highlight the value of our Elite customers. This type of comment is very disturbing and will be addressed. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We may be contacting you in the future to follow-up or get additional information from you regarding this situation. thezipper has already forwarded additional information.

NW scoop

Is this coincidence, or did we get the same untrained SEA supervisor.
This person didn't have a clue, but was very adamant.
When I identified her by name, the MSP supervisor confirmed
her lack of experience.
Is there a pattern here in SEA, or just an Peter Principle issue?

http://www.flyertalk.com/milesfr.shtml

This thread:

The issue has been resolved.
I had been dealing with a rookie supervisor in the Seattle office.
Yes, it appears as if there are some untrained supervisors at the NW elite
call center.
The NW Plat CSR I spoke to said there's a software glitch when you add
the Hawaiian AL portion to the routing. It needs to be overridden.
There's a need for more education in the booking of award trips to OZ.
The CSR today admitted that a lot of folks in the NW elite office are uncomfortable dealing with KAL, Malaysia, Air Tahiti Nui, and even Hawaiian.
Once again Schmutzig and Jaimito, thanks for the heads up. It's always
good advice to get a second opinion.

Mmmm sounds like the same SEA res supv. I experience a few months back. She said very similar things to me, pertaining to a fare downgrade. I got her first and last name, the address to the SEA call center, and the name of the call center director. Wrote (not typed) a letter and mailed it a couple days later. I didn't mess around with TTU, it needed to go directly to the source.

Thanks for being the guinea pigs. I hope to be booking a couple award tickets to Oz tomorrow a.m. after some miles post.

That's one way to get the balance down!

Thanks for everyone's feedback. It sounds as if a few of us have experienced the same person in Seattle based on this.

Thanks Scoop. I know this is not the level of service that NWA strives to provide, and also from my own experience I know this as well.

Please feel free to have anyone internally reach out to me regarding this as you mentioned thezipper provided my contact info.

they typically give "pseudo" names for security purposes

This is not always the case. Especially, if you call at odd hours, you have a very good chance of getting Seattle. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but disheartening to learn of the OP's experience.

If you call in the later evening from the west coast, you'll get the Seattle center. You can tell because there is no recorded prompt to enter your WP number, you just go straight into the call queue. It kinda surprises some agents when I talk about the weather we are having and they wonder how I know where they are.

Hmm..I'm usually calling from the east coast and do at times call late local time but I guess not late enough