Monks gone amok?

In this episode, worlds collide. One world is a monastery in New Mexico, where monks strive to remain tranquil in all circumstances. The other world is United Airlines, which is designed to test the patience of monks who strive to remain tranquil in all circumstances.

Or so it seems. Because it is easy to keep a steady pulse in the splendor and isolation of a desert. But on the phone with United? That is much, much harder.

Our tale begins with a flight taken in late November by a Brother John Baptist of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, in Abiquiu, N.M. (The monks requested that their monastic names be used, for privacy reasons.) He had flown to his native Malawi in southeastern Africa to visit his sick mother in late November, on a round-trip ticket bought by the monastery for $2,489. Though some of the travel would be on another carrier, United sold the ticket.

Soon after he arrived in Malawi, he realized that he needed to stay longer. So the monastery called United to reschedule his return trip, adding a few weeks to his stay.

That’s when the trouble started. A monk at the monastery, Brother Noah, called United and said he was told that the company never received payment for the ticket. This sounded insane, given that Brother John Baptist had already used the outbound portion of the itinerary. United’s rep then said something a little contradictory: Brother John Baptist actually had credit for a return flight, but he could not use this credit because of suspicion that the original transaction was fraudulent.

The best idea, the rep suggested, was for the monastery’s leader, Abbot Philip, to visit the United desk at the airport in Albuquerque, a three-hour drive away.

Brother Noah asked for a supervisor.

“I spoke to a Mark,” Brother Noah told the Haggler. “He took full responsibility and said that he was reissuing the ticket. He said we’d receive it via email. We waited two hours. It never came.”

Brother Noah called again and provided the original confirmation number, passenger name and so on. The customer service rep couldn’t find it. So he asked again for a supervisor.

“This was the most frustrating call of the day,” Brother Noah said. “Everything became our fault. There was no evidence that Brother John Baptist had been placed on a new return flight. No record of the conversation with Mark. I really struggled to remain calm and charitable. My monastic life is about staying peaceful in all circumstances. I failed during this call.”

The Haggler was intrigued. What exactly does a livid monk sound like, anyway?

“I said to her something like: ‘Thank you for speaking. God bless you. I will pray for you. But you have not been helpful.’ ”

Whoa, Brother Noah! Dial back the rage there, fella. You’re going to pop a vein.

When the Haggler noted that this outburst didn’t really sound like an outburst, Brother Noah laughed and then elaborated.

“It was my tone of voice,” he said. “I know that it manifested anger.”

Abbot Philip decided that it was time go high-tech. The monastery posted an open letter on its website — what, a monastery can’t have a website? — explaining the predicament to online visitors and asking for help. The post included a rebuttal to United’s claim that the round-trip ticket was a fraudulent purchase.

“The credit card belongs to the monastery, and I made the reservation personally,” Abbot Philip wrote. “In any case, canceling a return flight without notice and stranding a passenger abroad is not a reasonable first step to resolve concerns about possible fraud.”

Dozens read and responded to this post, and one person forwarded it to the Haggler. But before the Haggler became involved, someone else connected the monastery to a person with clout at United. Brother John Baptist’s ticket was quickly reinstated.

What had gone wrong? The first explanation was that the monastery’s credit-card company, MasterCard, had canceled the ticket. Brother Noah said a customer rep told him, “We have a significant amount of fraud for transactions in this region of the world, and it is the responsibility of the card holder to confirm payment directly to their credit-card company.” (Brother Noah said he typed detailed notes during the call.)

That answer sounded implausible to Brother Noah, as it would to all sentient beings, because MasterCard had processed the transaction and never issued a fraud alert.

A few days after this unsatisfying explanation, the Haggler contacted United. And a few days after that, United called the monastery and offered a $350 credit for future use and, for the first time, an apology.

“We really appreciated this,” Brother Noah wrote in an email to the Haggler, “because it was the first time someone had said it wasn’t the monks’ fault!”

So what really went awry?

A rep in corporate customer care told Brother Noah that United had recently hired a third-party fraud-detection company.

“They got a bit overzealous,” this rep told Brother Noah, according to his notes. “I can’t even say what I want to say about it. It has gone up the chain. One of our senior V.P.s was involved and knew about it. I don’t think they’ll be making this mistake again.”

To the Haggler, United was a bit more vague. “We incorrectly marked the charge for the ticket as fraudulent,” wrote a spokeswoman, Jennifer Dohm, “which is what prevented the customer from making a change and ultimately prevented the reservations agents he spoke to from resolving the issue.”

So United, and the rest of the world, have learned a valuable lesson: Do not mess with the monks of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. Because, when wronged, they will seek justice, and they will use methods far more effective than yelling.

Source: The New York Times