a simple tip: hang up and call again.
 

I have found that if you call up an airline, hotel, etc. and wind up with some non-cooperative person with attitude, who will not cooperate,
the thing to do is simply hang up and call again or call later.

Last year LH would not put me and my wife in adjacent seats after, for unknown reasons we were not seated together. Just hung up called again and got seated together with no problem.
Called a hotel to confirm and found that they put me in a handicap room for a nine day stay. Asked to be changed out and they said they could only "maybe try" that once I arrived next week. Again, called the next day (to make sure I wouldn't come across the same desk agent) and they changed me to a regular room with no problem.

:D

I suggest you search FT for "HUACA" or "hang up and call again."

Very good and very common advice when dealing with phone reps of varying competence levels.

Safe Travels,

Doc

Very well used practice discussed often in many of FlyerTalk's airline forums.

[As moderator, I edited the thread title to make it more specific in order to aid discussion.] Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.

HUACA is in the Glossary, but HUCA is more prevalent IME (and via Search). And both result in hundreds of hits in just the last 6 months, so it's quite common.

Just be aware that some airlines make notes of every call, so if you HUCA, you may be met with "I see you just called on this topic 5 minutes ago".

At which point you say: "yes, the last person I spoke to was not helpful and poorly informed."

HUCB and say: " I was disconnected waiting for a supervisor to pickup. Please try again."

I think I can get behind the HUACA mantra.

But whenever I see "hang up", I picture callers literally hanging up the phone on people in mid-sentence. What's the etiquette? What if the CSR thinks they can "fix" the problem after the hangup?

Am I looking to inform the CSR that I'm going to hang up, and instruct them not to do anything else on this file? Or literally just go CLICK?

Please teach me the ways of HUACA.

It is great until you call back and get the same agent again. :eek:

Varies based on how far you are into a conversation and also if you're trying to get a favor/waiver or not. If there is a risk that the agent will document the reservation akin to "PAX informed XYZ not permitted" then you need to find a way to back out of the request before that happens. Once the record is notated getting past that is hard.

Also, don't be a schmuck. If you can work in something along the lines of, "Thanks for trying; I guess I need to think about my options and give ya'll a call back later," that is a polite way to "hang up" the call.