Please hold for next available agent; hold time 31 HOURS!

[JOhnH]

This call was worthy of Dilbert/Dogbert. I'm sorry, I love Delta as a company, and I understand they are going through tough times, but this is ridiculous.

Back in January, I and 3 other couples scheduled first class flights to Costa Rica and reserved a house on the ocean. Of course we know what has happened since then and the house was cancelled, but the flight wasn't and since they were non-refundable, I couldn't get a refund. And I have very little use for eCredits as I fly commercial about once a decade. So I have been waiting to see if they would cancel the flight, which as I understood it, would entitle me to a refund.

Today, I get a notification that two of my legs have been changed. One delayed by two DAYS, which obviously makes me miss my connecting flight. Another leg was moved forward three hours, which I can't make because my earlier flight that day doesn't arrive until after the new departure time.

I tried to call Delta and they say I can press 1 to get a call back within 31 HOURS or press 2 for other options. I press 1 and it says "sorry, invalid option". It repeats my choices and I press 2. It says "sorry, Invalid option" and repeats it again. I again press 1 and it says "Sorry, you have exceeded the number of garbled something. And it continues with Please Hold for an agent. Expected hold time is 31 HOURS.

I'm not sure where to go frome here, but making the scheduled flight is now impossible and I really don't want an eCredit.

 

[masloki]

With a first class reservation, they may have put a different customer service number on there. Check the confirmation email.

Also, at least some news reports stated that US mandated refunding is required when a customer asks. They won’t offer though. I went through something similar but was luckily able to use EU261 to force the refund with the cancelled flight. It sounds like your flights were cancelled and you were rebooked so you have a decent chance of getting the itinerary refunded.

 

[masloki]

Also checkout flyertalk.com as there are probably plenty of posts on this topic and similar with many tricks to improving your odds of success.

 

[JOhnH]

Also checkout flyertalk.com as there are probably plenty of posts on this topic and similar with many tricks to improving your odds of success.

Thanks for the advice. I expect to succeed here, but I can't hang on hold for 31 hours.

 

[Hang 4]

Delta responds well to Twitter. I had a similar issue that got fixed in 24 hours via that route. I know most folks on here don’t tweet, and neither do I. But it’s worth it for this one.

 

[weilke]

Given how little flying they do right now, it seems suprising that their customer service is so swamped. Chances are their contracted call centers in the phillipines are closed due to covid.

 

[Initial Fix]

I have to admit It peeves me when they change your itinerary, shortening your vacation, even after you picked certain flights (at a premium).

 

[JOhnH]

I have to admit It peeves me when they change your itinerary, shortening your vacation, even after you picked certain flights (at a premium).

They actually lengthened my vacation. They delayed my departure by two days. I was scheduled to leave on a Wednesday and they changed that to Friday. But my connecting flight in Atlanta is still on Wednesday.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Can you choose another flight via their app?

Thus far, if United did something like that, they've been good about letting me pick another itinerary without extra charges through their app, though they've never changed anything as drastically as your situation.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

Hello Amex? I’d like to dispute a charge.​

 

[NoHeat]

At least you got a phone number to call.

American Airlines gave us only a website, prefunds.aa.com. Their phone agents say they can book tickets but not refunds.

After a week, there’s been no response to our submission to the “prefunds” site, and with no recourse that I can see.

 

[wsuffa]

At least you got a phone number to call.

American Airlines gave us only a website, prefunds.aa.com. Their phone agents say they can book tickets but not refunds.

After a week, there’s been no response to our submission to the “prefunds” site, and with no recourse that I can see.

. The recourse I a a complaint to DoT.

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

As long as you don’t check in, you should be ok to contact them later (after the flight date) for refund/credit. Check the terms of your ticket class.

 

[JOhnH]

Delta responds well to Twitter. I had a similar issue that got fixed in 24 hours via that route. I know most folks on here don’t tweet, and neither do I. But it’s worth it for this one.

Thank you for the Twitter advice. Whoda thunk it. It worked.

I activated a decades old Twitter account that I had never even used before and sent them a message. Within a half hour I had emails confirming my refund to my credit card.
The email said the refund might take two billing cycles, but loaning them my money for 60 days is better than giving it to them. This wasn't their fault but they handled it well in the end. Go Delta.

 

[denverpilot]

The email said the refund might take two billing cycles, but loaning them my money for 60 days is better than giving it to them. This wasn't their fault but they handled it well in the end. Go Delta.

I wouldn’t cheer until you have the chickens in hand.

A whole bunch of people getting refunds right now are going to end up instead way down the creditor list after the bankruptcies are filed.

Not saying that’s Delta, just in general.

Many are loaning money that’ll last just long enough to pay the bankruptcy attorney who’s already been contacted and retained.

Might consider challenging the card transaction on top of the promise. That way it’s documented. Card company might eat it anyway. Or just claw it back.

No real possible harm to you. If they refund you just say ... disregard.

Their inability to process transactions in a timely fashion is really not your problem. Especially considering a normal refund takes five days, max.

Whatever you like, just mentioning it as an option.

 

[NoHeat]

. The recourse I a a complaint to DoT.

Luckily, it didn't come to that. AA did eventually act on the request that we submitted to their "prefund" website. After a week, they emailed us that they would credit the full ticket price to our credit card.

It's weird that they offer no way to talk to them, other than to submit a claim where they limit you to just 150 characters. Maybe for a straightforward claim that's enough, but it was a real challenge to explain in such brevity how our ticket had been changed and how that affects the amount we requested. But it worked, and I'm happy about that.

 

[denverpilot]

It's weird that they offer no way to talk to them, other than to submit a claim where they limit you to just 150 characters. Maybe for a straightforward claim that's enough, but it was a real challenge to explain in such brevity how our ticket had been changed and how that affects the amount we requested. But it worked, and I'm happy about that.

Not that weird.

Whereas the rest of the world has “unlimited talk” on phones, businesses never have. Every minute someone sits in the hold queue is significant money.

Stack that up to the capacity of the phone system and you’re bleeding thousands a minute.

We have incredibly low rates on the inbound L/D incurred on 800 numbers and only about 100 agents and our phone bill has topped five digits in a month. Normally rolled into the price of service.

Other places I’ve worked had 3000-6000 phone lines at one, and over 10,000 at the other. The phone bill at the latter looked like a small county GDP until they were bought by one.

If all of those calls were refund calls at X times normal call volume? Ugly. Real fast.

 

[Ghery]

Sounds like a problem I had with United last night. We had purchased tickets for a trip to Hawaii, leaving on June 12 and returning on June 22 (arriving in SEA on June 23. Purchased last March as they had a great fare sale going on. They changed a bunch of flights (all of them, as a matter of fact), so I called a customer service agent to find out what was going on. The flights going to Kauai had indeed been changed, but we could tolerate arriving that evening rather than before noon. The flight leaving Lihue on the 22 was just delayed an hour or so, which blew the connection at SFO, but we were only arriving at SEA an hour or so later. OK, I told the agent that I would accept the change online.

Before I could accept the change the change had been made, plus an additional flight from SFO to SEA was added, a day later. WTF? So I called their number again. While waiting for the agent to answer the flights from LIH on the 22 and 23rd had disappeared. The only one coming home was SFO to SEA on the 24th. So, how was I supposed to get from LIH to SFO? This agent said that they had no flights from LIH to SFO on the 22nd. Oh really? I just had that leg reserved. So, rather than accept the delay of a day I cancelled the entire trip. Heck of a way to treat someone with over 1.4 million miles on UA over the past 20+ years. They cancelled the flights, so a full refund is due.

I called back today after checking on-line and finding that they had a way to get home on the 22nd, arriving on the 23rd. Hawaiian Airlines from LIH to HNL, then UA from HNL to SFO to SEA. The new agent said they didn't have an agreement with Hawaiian that would pay for the leg on Hawaiian, so I would have to pay the entire new airfare. $1250 instead of $580 for the two of us. About $700 for two people to get from LIH to HNL (about a 1/2 hour flight). Thanks, but no thanks. The cancellation stands and UA owes a full refund as they cancelled the flights originally scheduled for getting home.

I think I'll use my UA miles to buy our tickets to Hawaii next January. After that, who knows. They don't show me any loyalty, my loyalty to UA may have come to an end. Heck of a way to run a railroad.

 

[denverpilot]

Heck of a way to run a railroad.

To be fair, none of them are running railroads right now. Mostly parking lots.

Are there still two and a half miles of airliners parked on Runway 8 at DEN alone?

The rental car lots were full to overflowing back when we got in the second week of imprisonment. They were loading them on car carriers to take them elsewhere as fast as they could.

WallyPark had leased half their lot to the rental places just to have somewhere to put them all.

 

[JOhnH]

I wouldn’t cheer until you have the chickens in hand.

A whole bunch of people getting refunds right now are going to end up instead way down the creditor list after the bankruptcies are filed.

Not saying that’s Delta, just in general.

Many are loaning money that’ll last just long enough to pay the bankruptcy attorney who’s already been contacted and retained.

Might consider challenging the card transaction on top of the promise. That way it’s documented. Card company might eat it anyway. Or just claw it back.

No real possible harm to you. If they refund you just say ... disregard.

Their inability to process transactions in a timely fashion is really not your problem. Especially considering a normal refund takes five days, max.

Whatever you like, just mentioning it as an option.

The chickens are in hand! The refund is in my account this morning. I suspected that the two billing cycles was a worst-case scenario and was intended to keep people from calling every day asking where the refund was.

 

[FORANE]

Please hold, expect further clearance in 31 hours...

 

[chartbundle]

Stack that up to the capacity of the phone system and you’re bleeding thousands a minute.

I'm surprised that the 'Virtual Hold' systems by places like VHT(vhtcx.com) hasn't taken off more, or maybe they just charge as much for their tools as the lines cost. Although I guess for the original poster the callback system wasn't actually equipped to handle that sort of latency.

 

[denverpilot]

I'm surprised that the 'Virtual Hold' systems by places like VHT(vhtcx.com) hasn't taken off more, or maybe they just charge as much for their tools as the lines cost. Although I guess for the original poster the callback system wasn't actually equipped to handle that sort of latency.

Can be cost. Can be “we normally staff to answer in 120 seconds, why would we buy that?”, can be technical integration issues.

Our system has a “we’ll call you back” predicting dialer, but we keep it disabled. It operates on average call times which our traffic varies wildly on, we have tons of five minute calls mixed with a handful of 2-3 hour calls, so it mostly ticks people off by calling them too soon.

The 5 minute queue gets concerned if they see people waiting longer. The 2 hour queue I’ve seen people hold for much longer than that. Some of those calls require translators or are court cases dialed out to, tying up that much smaller staff group.

There’s also a funny story about a “required by regulation” for one customer that doesn’t really apply to us, a voice mail box... doesn’t say how often it has to be checked... lol. I just set it up — they do whatever they like with it.

The other phone system fun is seeing who the voice mail hoarders are and who deletes. The hoarders are about 5% and take up 50% of the utilized storage space.