br2k

So, this weekend I had an experience dealing with phone CS. To keep it short:

- Did an SDC on a reservation - something got out of sync
- Called "premier line" from my phone, system recognized me and put through to "premier service", where CS agent was able to fix the ticket in a few clicks. Agent is calm, sounds a bit bored, but polite.

- Later did another SDC - and something else went out of sync (looks like it changed the booking but failed to reissue the ticket).

- As I was abroad, and not near wifi - called directly from my cell. When I do that, caller ID does not transfer and UA system does not recognize me. UA voice system did prompt me for my MP number and zip code, but still routed to some other kind of a call center. I usually can tell simply by the attitude of an agent and how they answer (and no, they are not offshore - all agents were US based).

- This agent flails around for good 20 minutes, all panicky and lost, making outlandish claims like "flight is fully booked", "my system shows it all in red" and "only U class is available, you will need to pay $1000 per person to change".

- Hang up, go back to hotel, call over wifi. UA system recognizes me, puts through to "premier desk", tickets reissued and record fixed in minutes. Agent is calm, sounds a bit bored, but polite. There is a pattern here, isn't there?

I recall having similar experiences in the past. Essentially, whenever I get put through to those "good" agents, based on phone system recognizing my phone number - issues are handled quickly and well. Whenever the system does not recognize me, I get those "other" agents and then it's always asking for trouble.

- Is this a common experience? Who are these agents and why such a difference?
- More importantly, in case where I can't call from my phone - how can I ensure getting to the right call center?

chrisl137

That's consistent with my experience.

I was consistently a silver for several years and when I'd call CS it never took more than a few minutes, including wait time, and they had no trouble addressing my problems. Even during major weather events, it even picked up before the first ring and I was off the phone with a new itinerary in a couple minutes.

Last year I didn't fly much, and I'm back to general member. I had to call CS over some purchases on their website and it took three calls and an hour. The general agents couldn't do anything, and had to transfer me to the website operations and I got disconnected in the transfer a couple times. Then the website person tried to shuffle me back to the website CS form, which I'd already tried and it was throwing errors. I got them to fix it with: "sorry, your website CS form throws an error - if my problem isn't resolved on this call, my next is to the CC company and you'll see a chargeback".

myleguy

In my experience, very common. As a non elite, I am always routed to overseas call center (Phillipines?) There is a communications gap, and I usually just give up.

halls120

Same here. When I get an agent on the premier line, the service is competent to outstanding depending on the agent. When I get a call center, I just HUCA, as those agents are generally abysmal. By comparison, I have no status on DL, but their agents treat me like I do.

Ber2dca

Looking back, UA call center probably got the job done on only maybe 20% of the times I called. What's worse is that when they can't get the job done, they get snippy with you. It's probably one of the worst call center operations I've ever dealt with. I will say that the U.S. (Chicago?) based agents seem a bit more likely to get the job done than the people in Manila..

prometa

Yep, same experience here. Recently I had to make a change and got routed to Elite CS. One great thing about the elite agents is you can use the internal lingo for things to communicate exactly what you want to do in one sentence (for example, connection vs stopover, etc).

I had a waitlisted upgrade on the changed segment that did not autorefund, so she sent me to MileagePlus customer service. While I was with them, I realized the first agent put me on the wrong first segment, so I asked MileagePlus to send me to reservations. That sent me to standard/non-elite CS, and then I spent 10 minutes trying to communicate to the agent what I was trying to do, persuade him not to charge me another change fee, etc. I realized it was going to be regular CS as soon as he answered, and wish I had just HUCA on the premier line as soon as I did. Somewhat humorously, the regular CS agent deleted the segment and manually added the correct one which broke the fare, and added the new segment as a full-fare Y-class, which made me eligible for an immediate upgrade. I applied for an upgrade on the second segment and both segments had R inventory, so I didn't get save anything/cheat the system really, but I thought it was funny.

Also, as a side note, I'm about 10/10 with premier agents being women--never had a male premier agent. Am I unusual in that experience?

transportprof

I had a sked change yesterday, and had to make two calls to the Premier 1K line to get it dealt with properly.
First agent insisted that any sked change had to be greater than 30 minutes to enable a manual rebooking. The sked had changed by exactly 30 minutes.

Then, she made up stuff like, "There will be more changes between now and your trip, and if the cumulative time difference of the changes adds up to more than 30 minutes, an agent will be able to rebook your travel at no charge."

HUCA, second Premier 1K agent knows what she's doing and rebooks ticket in < 5 minutes.

So I'm afraid that there is no consistency, even with the 1K Premier "desk". That's what makes dealing with United an adventure.

IamHungry

I guess it sucks to be a non-elite UA member like me. Soon enough they will charge us $10/call if non elite would like to get things done within 15 minutes.

RandomBaritone

I concur. As a Platinum, my single taste of the 1K desk was a few months back when I was transferred there to fix an award ticket after an equipment change. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven: not only did the agent know her stuff, she was empowered to do the seemingly unthinkable: open saver J on any UA flight I wanted.

Then last week, the opposite experience on the standard "Premier Line": I needed a segment added to an award ticket within 24 hours of issuance, and the agent insisted up and down that not only was that impossible, neither she nor her supervisor had ever heard about this "Excursionist Perk" I kept mentioning. (I suspect she thought I made it up.) I took one for the team though, and instead of HUACA, I patiently explained to her that this was UA's own term for a free stopover, and that if she kept checking, someone there would have heard of it. Sure enough, after 15 minutes on hold, she came back -- appropriately mortified -- and apologized for her mistake. I hope I saved another caller some time and aggravation.

It all looks properly ticketed now, though I suppose I'll find out for certain when I check in later this week.

oopl

Just wait for the next enhancement where you can pay with miles for priority phone service.

prometa

Elites will get 'complimentary premier phone' service, but only if agents aren't busy. We'll be able to upgrade to premier phone service, but the price for elites will be higher than for non-elites.

warrenw

I have experienced both the regular line and the premier 1K line. To answer the original question, you can ensure you get the premier line by entering your mileageplus number when you first call. I live overseas and usually use a calling app when I call so they don't recognize my number. But I have never had a problem getting the 1K line when I enter my MP number.

As far as quality of agents, even with the 1K line there's a drastic difference. I've found that if they ask if you want help booking a rental car that they're fairly new. I never get that question with senior agents.

And, I would say the majority of agents are female but I do get males 20% of the time.

UA1K_no_more

Spent 30 minutes arguing with a callcenter agent that I shouldn't be charged 12.5k additional miles when changing the domestic leg to first class for a Europe-U.S. business award that I booked earlier the same day. The agent's argument? "Transatlantic business class on a partner airline + a domestic US flight in economy is 70k miles. Booking transatlantic partner business award involving domestic first class is 82.5k miles according to the redemption table"...
I guess I could have asked them to cancel the award and then book the trip again with F class on the domestic leg, but there was no guarantee that the transatlantic flight would be available again.
Whenever I call UA now (as a general member) I know that I'll have to spend at least 30 minutes on the call (waiting in queue + spending several minutes explaining to the agent what I want + waiting for the agent to get a supervisor to help make a trivial change). When I was 1K, I could get the same thing done in a couple of minutes.

seanp7

I don't call much but in the last year, the 1K line has been nothing but superb. I've never had a 'bad agent'. Lucky, I guess!

transportprof

You're tempting fate!