I have some reasonably complex itineraries, usually involving stopovers. While the online tool can return some ‘ok’ results, calling in can maximise the best flight combinations in terms of carrier, timings and transit points.
My most recent booking involved two PNRs because of different starting points for two pax… but there was a quirk where booking 1 business class seat on TAP would zero out all other availability on the particular route for the day! The call centre was needed to book the itinerary for two, split the PNR, then change the origin for one pax.
Often as a non status pax you can’t even get into the aeroplan queue, and if you do, you could be waiting close to two hours. As gold i’m through in 5 mins.