Thanks for the info Rick.

Today I sat in the message queue for 2+ hours before giving up. Then I called, was personally welcomed once again by the friendly automated response system and eventually got to the wait queue for an agent. This time I was given the option to have them call me back when someone was available -- which was estimated to be in 7.5 hours. I'll try again tomorrow.

The 1st Class tickets I booked last August for this July's trip were miles and cash but I guess I caught them at a good time because the miles part was only 62k. I'll be happy to take a full miles credit if it will get me the same 1st class seats that I had for this year's trip.