I spend a lot of time thinking about points, miles, and travel. As part of this, I get really into the weeds, thinking about how these systems come together. I personally think that this stems from my training on how to go deep into a subject and my curiosity about customer experience in general (which is what I do in my day-job).
As part of this, I tend to learn systems quite well. Additionally, when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, sometimes you come across a new employee who may not be up-to-speed on every little nuance of a particular system.
I find this to be particularly relevant for airline systems. Airlines are, by necessity, big complex systems that require a lot of knowledge about how they work. Additionally, there are situations that come up all the time that really take thinking on the airline’s part about how they want to handle it.
I don’t expect every agent to know how every little scenario should play out. That’s just not fair to customer service agents that you talk to! If they are just starting out on the the job, I would not expect them to know everything. There’s always a new situation that requires to be thought about.
That leads me to today’s Saturday Travel Tip: Don’t be afraid to hang up and call again.
Hang Up & Call Again
It might be the case that you come across an agent that either does not understand the situation, hasn’t had this situation happen to them, or they just don’t care (they are people too!). At this point, it’s best to be nice, cut your losses, and call back.
Why hang up and call again? I can think of a few reasons:
- You should likely get a new agent. This new agent might be more empowered or have more institutional knowledge to help you get what you want. Anecdotally, I also find that different call centers have different quality of service for each airline. Some call centers…care a bit more or might be more willing to bend the rules a bit than other call centers in other cities.
- It might be the case that you didn’t explain the situation well the first time. I try to view the first call a a practice run, where I apply previous knowledge about how I explained it (poorly) and plan a new strategy about how to explain the situation and what I want to do.
- The first agent might raise a rule that I haven’t researched, or I may have forgotten, requiring me to do a bit more research so that I can ask more clearly what I want.
A Recent Example from My Travels
This past weekend, I went to Seattle with my dad to hang out, see his best friend, and attend Frequent Traveler University – Seattle (review of the Hyatt Regency Seattle to come).
To get to Seattle, I flew Alaska Airlines in both directions. This was due to a combination of being the most convenient times for me, a good price, and working on my American Airlines status, as both belong to the Oneworld alliance.
My outbound flight was normal. However, at booking, I had booked my return flight from Seattle to DC to leave at ~4:30PM PST, arriving at midnight into DC. As I got closer to the trip, I had buyer’s regret. I wished I had purchased the 10AM PST flight, so I could get into DC in the evening (~6PM EST). This would have just made getting up for work much easier for me the next day.
I had gotten an email asking for volunteers to take a different flight. I made the decision to call Alaska Airlines. My reasoning was that if Alaska was looking for volunteers to take a different flight, I could offer to take a flight that wasn’t on the list, freeing up space on the original flight. Thus, I called up the Alaska Airlines call center to see if I could get on the earlier flight.
The representative told me that I would need to pay for a different flight, even though I was offered a set of flights. While the flight I wanted wasn’t on the original list, my “you don’t have to pay me” offer didn’t matter. The agent insisted that I could only pick from what they offered. The agent also told me that Oneworld elites couldn’t change their flights, even for a same-day standby, without paying $50.
I knew that wasn’t how it worked, so I thanked them for their time and moved on with life. I waited until check-in opened, contacted Alaska Airlines, and was confirmed onto the flight that I actually wanted.
Conclusion
As you can see from the example above, by cutting losses and respectfully ending the original call, I was able to move onto a different avenue of communication and get what I wanted. I don’t know why the original agent couldn’t / wouldn’t do what I was asking. However, by hanging up and calling again, I was able to work within the rules and get what I wanted.
What do you think about this tip? Is this something that you have ever done?
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