Most airlines offer elite status to frequent fliers that comes with a variety of well advertised benefits, like reduced or waived service fees, free upgrades, priority boarding, and more. But one perk flies beneath the radar, and, in my opinion, it’s one of the most valuable.
Elite status offers noticeably better and faster phone support.
If you’ve always had elite status, you probably don’t realize how poor the normal phone support is at many airlines. And if you’ve never had status, you might not know that calling an airline can be productive and painless.
I can almost always get through to a Delta phone representative in less than five minutes, and that representative is almost always a native or proficient English speaker who is friendly and competent. That’s because I have Platinum status. The few times I’ve been in the general queue have involved long wait times to reach someone who sometimes struggles to communicate or struggles to help.
A few years ago I was flying Delta from New York to Florida, transferring in Atlanta, a city that had just been struck by an ice storm. As my flights were delayed, changed, cancelled, and rescheduled, I ended up with no fewer than six boarding passes that day, each as the result of a call to Delta. But I made it to Florida, a feat I couldn’t have accomplished — no matter how much I was willing to pay — if I didn’t have status.
Similarly, Delta lets some status holders (Gold and higher) change a flight on the day of travel for free. But some changes require the help of a representative, so if you’re a status holder you get more than a cost savings. You might get the ability to change (for free) when others sometimes can’t change at all (even if they pay), because they can’t reach a rep.
Things are even worse when it comes to United. The one time I was forced to fly United on a major trip, I ended up status matching just so I could speak to someone competent. With the non-status phone queue, I couldn’t even reach a helpful supervisor most of the time.
(At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve found that all of the Virgin Atlantic phone representatives are delightful and capable.)
So even though I don’t see it mentioned nearly as much as the other perks, good phone support may be worth the cost of obtaining status if you fly frequently enough. Sometimes it might even be worth it for one flight.
