While the Tech Blog for Non-Geeks is a tech news and commentary site, I feel compelled to share an experience that I had today with customer support representatives from US Airways, Delta Airlines, and American Express. After all, Help with a Smile is a business entirely built on customer service, so I find it somewhat relevant.

First, allow me to toot my own horn. I am renowned in some social circles for being a ruthless consumer. I take no prisoners when dealing with customer support reps, and am good at keeping my cool and getting what I want. (My good friend Ben tells me these things, and I am not one to argue with him.) I believe this to be one quality that all conscientious small business owners share. When I go off on a rant about poor customer service, you'll usually hear me say something to the effect of "If I ran my business that way…". I can promise you that if in fact I did run my business "that way", we would have been out of business a long time ago.

Now to the point:

A few weeks ago (January 25th to be precise) I booked a travel package from New York to Las Vegas through American Express Travel. For all intents and purposes, AMEX Travel is the same as Travelocity, since Travelocity powers the AMEX Travel site. So, I could have booked the exact same package through Travelocity at the exact same price, but I figured that membership has its privileges. After all, $75 a year must get me something, right?

Well, it did get me this very nicely priced package (exact dates witheld, but the trip is several months away):

• Departing Flight: Delta Airlines Flight 729, leaves JFK @ 9:55 AM, arrives in Las Vegas @ 12:46 PM
• Hotel Stay: 3 nights in a decent 4-star hotel /casino
• Return Flight: US Airways Flight 51, leaves Las Vegas @ 4:28 PM, arrives JFK @ 12:24 AM

The total price: $484.95 (per person, based on double occupancy)

I consider this to be a very fair deal, especially given the rising cost of airfare over the past few years. The problem came when I received this email last night from American Express Travel [ellipses mine]:

Thank you for making your travel plans with American Express Travel !
The airline has recently made a change to your flight schedule/flight numbers. Your travel plans have been updated and your current itinerary is shown below. Please review this information carefully and save this notification for future reference.
A return call to American Express Travel is not necessary. You may review your current travel reservations online, including all travel accommodations with the latest updates.

[….]

ITINERARY INFORMATION

DL729 […] DEPARTS NEW YORK JFK AT 955A ARRIVES LAS VEGAS AT 1246P
US548 […] DEPARTS LAS VEGAS AT 415P ARRIVES PHOENIX AT 530P
US18 […] DEPARTS PHOENIX AT 930P ARRIVES NEW YORK JFK AT 509A

I had already gotten one of these email in the 3 weeks since I booked the trip, so I was already well aware of the need for a decoder ring to actually figure out what changed (don't we have the technology yet to display the new itinerary in plain English, alongside the original?). Last time, it was that the flight number had changed- Delta Flight 729 actually used to be Delta Flight 629, but they just changed the number- no big deal. But this time, what I saw was about to define my very existence on this planet for the next 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 11 seconds.

Being the intelligent non-geek that you are, you can probably spot this particular itinerary change without too much effort. I had been taken off of US Airways Flight 51, which was a non-stop flight into JFK, and instead placed on two US Airways flights (548 and 18), which gave me a 4 hour layover in Phoenix and had me landing at JFK at 5:09 AM (as opposed to my initial flight, which landed just after midnight).

Wait, what?! To me, this was not an acceptable substitution. I think the reasons why are pretty clear. As much as I love Phoenix, I do not need to spend four hours at the site of my favorite football team's demise this post-season, only to take a red-eye flight and arrive home at 5 AM (and then go to work!). This seemed like a silly substitution, since I saw that there were many other similarly-priced flights: one from Delta (Flight 730) follows almost the exact schedule as my original US Airways Flight 51. I called American Express Travel, thinking that I had a pretty good case to get put on Delta 730, and that any reasonable human being would agree with me.

The representative who answered my call to Amex Travel said his name was Moses. It's irrelevant whether or not that is his real name, and I don't take any issue with the fact that I was obviously speaking to somebody in an Indian call center. That really had no bearing on this call. I told Moses that I would like to change my return flight, since the flights that they had switched me to when US Flight 51 was canceled would not work for me. After all, when I purchased the tickets I carefully weighed all of the flight options available, and had already paid for the more favorable itinerary I had before. Moses explained to me that he would have to get US Airways on the line to try and get me on a more favorable return flight (favorable being something non-stop and not a red-eye- in other words, more like what I had paid for).

This seemed like a pretty good start to the call. But I wasn't sure why Moses was bothering with US Airways- other carriers had flights that were available at virtually the same price- why not just switch me over to a comparable flight from Delta or American? I knew their were flights available that fit my schedule, cost the same, and were offered as part of the very same package I had booked a few weeks back. Furthermore, I knew that US Airways had nothing now that they canceled Flight 51. I had done my research.

The first representative from US Airways explained to me and Moses, my airline reservation system Sherpa, that since Flight 51 had been canceled and there were no other direct flights available to replace it, my best option was to take the red-eye with a 4 hour layover in Phoenix. While I felt that Moses was doing his best, this representative from US Airways was absolutely terrible. Rude, mumbling, inaudible, and completely indifferent. I could sense Moses' frustration as well. At one point, the US Airways rep even suggested that I wait until I get to Vegas, then cancel my return flight and book a new flight while I was there. Moses and I both knew that this was a terrible piece of advice that could lead to enormous fees or possibly leave me stranded in Vegas, effectively turning my life into a Seinfeld episode- Moses, to his credit, was not going to let that happen.

Moses knew all the tricks and quickly asked that we be transferred to a supervisor. What happened next was even more incredible. The US Airways rep was so bold as to refuse to transfer the call to a supervisor unless Moses hung up. He was essentially saying that he would allow me to speak with a supervisor alone, but not in the presence of Moses, my rep from Amex. I had flashbacks to past episodes of Law & Order SVU, where the detectives make various attempts to interrogate small children outside of the presence of their guardian, or suspects without their lawyer…. I wasn't going to let that happen to me. I informed the US Airways representative that I wished to speak with a supervisor, and that I would like to do so with Moses on the line. The US Airways rep finally relented.

On 3 separate occasions while we were on hold, the same rep came back to assure us that a supervisor would be on the line at any moment. Moses and I passed the time in silence. I ate some lasagna. After a few more minutes went by I heard Moses say "I'm sorry sir, he's hung up on us." At least I still had Moses.

Furious, Moses put me on hold once again as he got US Airways back on the line and was quickly elevated to a supervisor named Rena. Rena sounded a little more forthcoming than the last rep we spoke with at US Airways. Moses requested that US Airways put me on a flight with a different airline that more closely matched my original itinerary. This was a very reasonable request- it's a common practice when airlines cancel their flights and can't offer an equivalent alternative- rather than issue a refund, they'll book their estranged passengers on an acceptable flight with another airline.

Unfortunately, Rena then introduced a whole new level of complexity to the problem. She said that my flight was a "Code Share PNR" through Delta. PNR stands for Passenger Name Record, which is just a fancy way to say "reservation". Code sharing is a confounding practice that airlines engage in that I really don't have time to explain in detail, but I did find a decent article on code sharing. In short, although US Airways was operating the flight, Delta collects the money and markets the flight as their own. All of this code sharing stuff is supposed to be pretty transparent to the passenger, but it was really killing me in this situation. Because this was a code-share flight, Rena said, US Airways wasn't allowed to make changes to the flight itinerary. I am pretty sure this was a bold-faced lie, one way or the other, since US Airways had no problem shuffling me around from a good non-stop flight to a one-stop red-eye with a 4 hour layover in Phoenix. They certainly have the freedom to make some changes as they see fit. Still, Rena insisted that only Delta could authorize the change I desired (because of the code share).

Moses did exactly the right thing. He got Rena to agree to stay on the line while he called Delta and spoke with a representative named Katherine. He suspected that Katherine would tell him that it was US Airways' responsibility to take care of compensating me for the gross change in itinerary. Moses was right. He asked Katherine if she would also join the call with Rena and I (it was getting a little crowded on the line!), but she flat-out refused to do so. Moses came back on the line and updated Rena and I. I wondered- If you're a Delta Airlines representative, what could possibly be the reason to refuse to speak with your customer, their travel agent, and a representative from a partner airline in order to clear up any misunderstandings about a canceled flight that was booked via a code share with your airline? There is no good reason.

Katherine and Rena know how the customer service game is played, not just in the airline industry, but all over corporate America. If there's a tough problem, it's best to pass the buck onto another party as soon as you see an opening and move on to the next call. Customer support is a liability- the cheaper, the better. I was really having a tough time fighting through this system- I haven't talked much about my contribution to this lengthy conversation, but it suffices to say that I was incredulous, and often asked these various representatives what they would do if they were in my shoes. They had no answer.

By some miracle, Moses did get Katherine to join the call with myself and Rena. This put Katherine in a tight spot. Actually, I'm not entirely sure Moses had her permission to do this, as she seemed startled and surprised to hear Rena and I respond all of a sudden. She realized the position she was in, and then proclaimed that she had other calls waiting and had to go. Katherine from Delta maintained that since US Airways cancelled the flight, it was their responsibility to take care of me. Rena from US Airways, even after hearing this from Katherine's mouth first-hand, still offered no recompense. Who in the world was responsible for this flight? The code sharing excuse made the whole ordeal a nightmare.

I've been kind to Moses in this story, and to his credit he did make a good effort as my advocate. Still, there are many things Amex Travel could have done to make the situation better. I would have been happy to cancel the whole package, and re-book a new one. After all, the package I wanted, with the well-scheduled Delta Flight 730, was still available at roughly the same cost as the package I bought a few weeks before. Couldn't Amex see how my reservation had been mishandled, and allow me to cancel without a cancellation fee? No, Moses said, because the hotel would charge Amex a cancellation fee. I didn't much care for that explanation. I was simply wanting to rebook the same hotel room with an equivalent flight to the one I originally paid for.

Moses was eventually able to surmise that he could get me switched to a different US Airways flight, but it was flying into Newark rather than JFK (New Yorkers understand why that is a major downgrade for somebody who lives in Queens), and like the other flight I had been moved to, this one also had a layover in Phoenix, with all its bad football karma. At least this Newark flight landed at around 10 pm, as opposed to 5 am, but it also meant cutting my last day in Vegas short. Still I was exhausted. I took the offer, and vowed to come back again and fight some more. And I intend to.

Customer service is often an endurance game. It's like a gambling session during which your bankroll is your time, and your winnings are your dignity. Like most gambling ventures, it usually results in a small net loss in the short run, gradually eating away at your Saturday afternoons in the long run. Think of all the better things I could have done with one hour, twenty minutes, and eleven seconds.