Recommended time to call United and reach good agents?
 

I read that in Q1 UAL shut down a call center in India but I still don't trust them.

Any recommendations here on particular days or times of day that tend to yield more knowledgeable agents?

I'm fairly close to SEA. Better to go down at an off time and book award travel face to face with an agent?

You don't mention your status in MP, but from my POV I have had the best luck reaching the 1K desk in HNL (imho, the best CSR's at UA) late at night (11PM or later) and early morning (9am). All times EST.

Do you have status? If not, your chance of being rerouted to ICC is still pretty high.

If you do have status, the general consensus here is that agents from the HNL call center tend to be the nicest. I think you can reach HNL more often by calling around midnight or later your time. But then again, there's no guarantee, and the agents won't announce where they are based.

Ha! Forgot the important bit of info that I have no status. That would fix a lot of things.

A few years ago, in a big snowstorm, I resorted to calling the spanish-speaker's line and asking if they "habla'd Ingles" because I speak almost no spanish. Actually worked out pretty well in a pinch.

That is an interesting trick, I may try that sometime.

Since I can speak both Japanese and Chinese, I used to call the UA Asian language lines to avoid the ICC when I was a GM. The Asian operators picked up the phone faster than even 1K agents! Those of you who can speak the language and do not have the status should definitely try this option to reach UA.

With no status you're best bet is to call anytime on Feb 30th to reach a competent agent, any other time you will be sent over to India and get a "screen reader" who will be polite and apologetic but unable to anything beyond the most simplistic of task and have no input beyond what their screen tells them to say.

I've done the same before.

However, they don't seem too happy when I call about bookings that don't involve a flight going to HKG, PEK, PVG etc.

As a 3P and 2P, I had good luck getting the Chicago agents after 11pm Pacific time.

Chicago Supervisors are good...the agents are hit or miss. HNL by far is the best.

Unfortunately, the best time for you to call to reach a "good" agent is immediately after you each 50k EQMs.

+1 for HNL agents. Very patient, knowledgeable, and courteous in every contact I've had with them.

Domestic Call Center Success
 

Since losing status I have almost always been sent over to the ICC, many times even with status. My last few agent calls have been routed domestically.
I must say thank you to United as this has been very refreshing. I have been off the phone in less than 10 minutes both times!
Has there been a reduction in ICC usage?
Anyway, I hope my luck continues! ^

Since losing status, I've only had to call UA once and was routed to the ICC, where I was given incorrect information and left on hold for several minutes at a time.

I'm not a fan of having to call overseas web support to apply e-certs, either.

Recently called WS to ticket a multi-segment itinerary and apply a $200 e-cert. After several very long holds to talk to a "supervisor", agent came back and said he could not ticket that many segments...even though fare rules allow it.

He then made two separate reservations, out and back, which then would not support application of the e-cert. Hung up and called a nice 1K reservations agent with the two PNRs, who then immediately combined the two reservations into one. Had the 1K agent reconnect me to WS and stay on the line. Even with a single PNR it took time, but WS agent finally ticketed me after applying my e-cert.

Took an hour and a half to ticket. Geeze.