I phoned the WP line at about 1000h WST today wanting to get some changes made to a DOM U-bucket booking made some time ago for two PER-xMEL-CBR and CBR-xSYD-PER in September that QF has screwed with several times - with the main PITA being dumped into X on a Dash8 CBR-SYD from our initial U bookings on a B717.
I check EF and can see a B717 service is available 1h earlier - and showing 4U.
Only momentarily on hold before it was answered. I suspect Manila. Agent (Claire?) had a slight characteristic accent. Anyway, pretty definitely offshore.
I explain the issue. She indicates that we're in X, so claims we can't be changed to U. I protest that we originally booked in U and were involuntarily downgraded from U to X. I give her the number of the earlier B717 flight I'd like to change to.
She then claims there is no U available and gives me a list that indicates that EF is way offbeam or she's not looking at the right flight or right day. I protest that something is wrong, so she puts me on hold to go to a supervisor.
On hold for about 70 minutes. Just starting to wonder whether to HUACA when a emailed itinerary with the required change lobs in. I was checking through it for accuracy and wondering whether to now just hang up when Claire comes back on the line about 3-4 minutes after the email arrived apologising for the long hold and to inform me that the change had been made.
So, a good outcome but an hour to make such a seemingly simple change?