GI Bill hot line again open five days a week - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

GI Bill hot line again open five days a week

The GI Bill telephone hot line is once again open five days a week, after improvements were made to reduce the number of calls that do not go through, Veterans Affairs Department officials have announced.

The Education Call Center number is 1-888-GIBILL-1 (1-888-442-4551).

Created last year to handle an expected flood of questions about the new Post-9/11 GI Bill, the Muskogee, Okla., call center has been the target of complaints.

Because of a high volume of calls, VA officials admitted 90 percent of calls never made it through, and that many callers who were put on hold hung up in frustration before talking with an education counselor.

Making it even harder to get through was a decision to have the call center open only three days a week — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — so that education experts could be be reassigned every Thursday and Friday to help process benefits claims.

Effective Thursday, Feb. 18, the call center is now open Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time, VA officials said.

Veterans and school officials outside the U.S., who may not be able to use the toll-free hot line, may try contacting the Buffalo, N.Y., regional office for help. This will not be a toll-free call, but callers are to be placed at the head of the line for help.

The Buffalo customer service center numbers are 716-857-3196 or 716-857-3197. An overseas caller should enter “option one” when prompted to be put into a special queue that will route them to the next available representative.