Yo, come over here.

I heards you was having issues with thems over at AA. Whad they do ta yuz? Listen, yooze one of us and we help our own.

I’ll tell you what, you go talk to Eddie “the Pizzaman” Pizzarello and he’ll hook you up. Eddie’s got some connections inside AA. Capiche?

Fellow BoardingArea blogger, Ed Pizzarello (Pizza in Motion), has contributed a very intriguing post on Milepoint:

the AAdvantage team is keeping an eye out here with our assistance. We’ve got a handful of folks that can answer questions for us when we need help. ~Pizzaman

Of course, it’s nothing new for airlines and hotels to utilize social media/customer service representatives to monitor online community activity and assist travelers from time to time. What is different about this is that it appears AA reps won’t be monitoring directly and officially, but rather a group of Milepoint members and presumably influential AA employees have formed a covert coalition to get things done – we’ll call them the Milepoint and AA Friends and Insiders Association (MAAFIA).

When one of the “made” Milepoint members stumble upon a poster who needs help from AA, he/she will work this backdoor relationship with his/her AA associates … and problems will be solved.

Sounds like a great idea, and quite possibly a better way to get questions answered and issues resolved with AA than any of the more traditional channels. But the jury is still out. And Pizzaman makes it clear that this isn’t intended to be an instant cureall:

This isn’t 24/7 instant answer service, but we’ll be monitoring the forum for things they can assist with. If there’s something you’re not sure of, feel free to post here or start a conversation with me.

So far two Milepoint members have posed questions they would like passed along to AA, but as yet Pizzaman, nor any of the other mysterious MAAFIA members have publicly replied.

Then again, perhaps there aren’t going to be public replies. Maybe “things” will just get done and no one needs to know how they got done.  Maybe you just see your missing miles get posted today, and down the road if the Pizzaman calls you and needs a “delivery”, you make the delivery and you don’t ask questions.

Still, a suggestion if I may Mr. Pizzaman. If possible, it would be terrific to see some public postings of successes achieved. Or maybe a simple “Thank you GodfAAther” posted by the members who initially presented the questions/issues would suffice to let us all know that everything is being taken care of.

Yes sir, I’ll shut up … I’m nobody … My apologies sir, I was out of line.

Thank you GodfAAther.

Read the thread in its entirety: Enhanced Communication Channel With AAdvantage