Redeeming Frequent-Flier Miles? Get Ready to Wait

It was a few minutes before 4 p.m. Feb. 10, and I had a flight to book. I called the United Airlines Mileage Plus program to check my mileage. No problem.

Then the United operator forwarded me to the specialists who handle international bookings with mileage credits. Thus began a long, sad saga that may ring true for anybody who has tried to redeem miles and landed in phone limbo.

After I had spent about three minutes on hold, hearing United’s theme music (George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”), one of the airline’s recorded voices piped up.

“We apologize for this delay. And we mean that. Keeping you waiting is one of the things that’s wrong with air travel these days. So we’re not only working to get to your call as soon as possible, we’re working to create a new United Airlines. . . .”

During the next hour on hold, as I busied myself with other desk tasks--and started writing this column--that message cycled through 12 times, greeting me like an amnesiac every five minutes.

I began to wonder: Now that airlines have the Internet, are they paying less attention to their telephones? (The airlines say no. But their computer customers get better discounts than telephone customers.) Also: Do the airlines answer revenue-producing calls more promptly than mileage-redemption calls? (The airlines don’t disclose enough data to yield an answer. But they do maintain secret lines for those travelers who win elite status by logging the most miles each year.)

I kept busy at my desk while I was waiting. Soon I hit the three-hour mark. I’d heard 36 times how United hated to keep me waiting. So I did something most customers can’t.

I reached over to the telephone at the next desk and called the after-hours number for United’s public relations department. I left a message, and a few minutes later, a United spokesman, Joe Hopkins, called back.

He wondered why I was calling him at 9 p.m., Chicago time, to ask about frequent-flier miles.

I told him. How often, I asked, does this happen?

“I don’t know,” he said. He apologized for the inconvenience and gave me a name and number to call the next day. We said our goodbyes and then, three hours and 40 minutes after dialing, I formally gave up on my Mileage Plus call.

Several days of conversation with United public relations persons followed, during which they emphasized that United has spent millions in the last year to streamline its Mileage Plus reservations process. The carrier has added operators, extended business hours and empowered more employees to handle mileage-related tasks. On Feb. 1, 1999, United opened a long-awaited toll-free number, (800) 421-4655, for Mileage Plus customers who don’t have elite status.

The day I called, the Mileage Plus operators got more than 15,500 calls and handled 85% of them within 20 seconds, a spokesman said. That day’s “abandon rate”--the number of callers who gave up while on hold--was 2.1%. (The company’s goal is to lose no more than 3%.) Meanwhile, 3,600 calls came to the secret toll-free numbers reserved for its premier customers. (No word on how long they waited.)

But I wasn’t in those statistics. Once I’d checked my mileage balance with the Mileage Plus operator, I had to reach the company’s “international Mileage Plus” line to make the booking. That line, (888) 674-4680, relies on operators in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle with expertise in complex international reservations.

On the day of my misadventure, United’s records show that the longest customer wait on the international Mileage Plus line was 24 minutes, spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said. For some reason, my call was invisible.

“It could have been a phone company issue. I don’t know,” said Ebenhoch, who also apologized. If supervisors were aware of the problem, he said, “we would never allow a situation like that to happen.”

Was this a fluke? Maybe. Consider a test run in October by Inside Flyer magazine, a Colorado-based monthly that is a bible for frequent fliers.

Inside Flyer called 10 airlines’ frequent-flier service centers during business hours on a Monday and a Wednesday. (Eight of the 10 maintain toll-free service center phone numbers.) The top performer? United, which answered one call in 10 seconds, another in 26.

The rest was ugly. America West, American and Northwest managed to answer some of their calls in less than 60 seconds, but the six other major carriers repeatedly kept callers holding for at least a minute.

Inside Flyer’s advice: Don’t call on Mondays or (even worse) Tuesdays after a Monday holiday. Also, though peak times vary by airline, it’s generally wise to call early in the morning or late in the evening.

I conducted my own small test on Feb. 18, a Friday. Calling the frequent-flier centers of the big 10 carriers, I began at 3:30 p.m. When given automated choices, I followed the paths for frequent fliers redeeming miles.

At Alaska and America West, I got busy signals. At Continental, a recording said my call would be answered in approximately 12 minutes, so I hung up.

At Delta, I spent five minutes stepping through and waiting on the airline’s main number, then gave up. Then, confused by the recorded instructions, I tried Delta’s separate SkyMiles number and spent four minutes stepping through and waiting before giving up there too.

At Northwest, I held for four minutes and 40 seconds before reaching my first human voice, a pleasant young operator who volunteered that “our whole system is bogged down today.”

At Southwest and US Airways, which I tried until about 4:10 p.m. Pacific time, the offices had closed for the day. At TWA, a recording told me that all agents were busy and that I should “please call again later” and hung up on me.

That left United. I feared the worst, but got a human being in two minutes even. That gave United the best performance among the 10 major carriers, just as in the Inside Flyer test.

Anybody feel like applauding?

Christopher Reynolds welcomes comments and suggestions, but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or send e-mail to chris.reynolds@latimes.com.