I ran into this recently with ANA (All Nippon Airways). [1] There’s no better way to kill customer loyalty than to put someone on hold for 45 minutes on a charged phone call to make a basic change to a reservation that should be possible on the website (they also refuse to handle reservation-specific inquiries over email). Just had a look and JAL (Japan Airlines) also doesn’t offer a FreeCall number. I haven’t had re…
This is bizarre! When you call ANA from Australia they have multiple dedicated 1800 (free) numbers you can reach them at, including a call centre in the Philippines for simple issues that picked up straight away for me. I wonder why they're so much more customer hostile in their own geography?
In retrospect I probably should have tried making a free VoIP call to their US 1800 number. Although I’m not sure if their US office is able to make changes to itineraries that originate from Japan (and vice versa).