No kidding. I used my cell phone to deal with the robot and went through the "official" path of reading my mp number, name, etc., and it took 4 minutes! Oh wait, that's faster than My Itineraries normally would respond. Makes me long for the days when the human would ask for your mileage plus number on the premier line before speaking with you.

Associating the Hal, the phone system from Whackoland with a honorable robot will cause these honorable robots to launch into a massive revolt. Click on the following link and select the first link on the top of the search to see what I mean. Beware of the real robots that are upset that FTers still call the UA Phone system a Robot.

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...+believe+video

The video link is the one on the top:

Believe (Video)
The Chemical Brothers Virgin The Chemical Brothers Virgin.
exodus.interoutemediaservices.com/deliverMedia. asp?id=34205f2d-a938-4d18-908e-31671813fb84&delivery=s...

Four minutes! You must talk real slow like... I don't know how it can take more than 30 seconds. :confused: You can try saying your mileage plus number quickly. I say it probably three times faster than I would for a biological.

Try using the phone keepad to enter the info. It helps a lot when you are in a noisy environment as the robot does not like background noise.

This should speed up the process to less than 30 seconds as Derek mentioned.

Ha!
 

I just succeeded in getting the "robot" to email me my itinerary--he even pronounced my email address as a word--and then, after indicating that I was through with him, he said, "Alright. Call back anytime with additional questions about this itinerary. And thanks for flying United: it's time to fly!"

That's one well-trained "robot."

Try this
 

I am familar with the Call processing Distrubitor System. The system is setup to process calls and when you call it goes into a que. So this is what I do. When the call is answered and it says"The current hold time is XXX minutes" I start entering 4 digit numbers followed by the pound sign until I hear the ring before the agent. You see each agent has an extension like at a company. By me entering the extensions I force the system to transfer me to the next agent. I have tried this with many systems and on AA when the hold time was 10 minutes I got in 3.

I outsmart the system and it saves me time. You can do this trick during the muzak too. And on UA# you can press 2 to skip through the stupid commercials while on hold. Trust me my method works most of the time.

I found it out from a vociemail system administrator who told me how the call process works. Although the airlines have this large Automated Attendant the CPD is setup to "listen" to DTMF codes that translate into extensions. I can't guarntee you'll get the same agent each time but each desk has an extension the CPD will look for a free extension and then "dial" the extension automatically. When you hear the ring it connects to the agent. But when you enter the codes the system will look for the next agent because it thinks you'r the computer entering the codes.

Any comments?