Continental Airlines - never again

[mrsheppo]

We had booked with Continental back in June for our December trip. We had booked a 9:15 am flight from Reno to arrive in Orlando at 7:20 pm. and a return flight on the 12th with flight time of 6:00pm to arrive home at 10:30pm. Great price, thought I got a great deal. Come October, I couldn't access my info on the Continental web site, so I called Continental. Much to my surprise, I was told that I was now scheduled for my flight to Orlando for 11:55 am to arrive at 9:20pm and my return flight to Reno would still be 6:00pm but I would have to stay overnight in Houston and return now on the 13th out of Houston at 9:15 am.

I asked the Customer Sevice personnel why I had never been notified of the changes. They told me that I must be mistaken, that they always contact when changes are made. When they checked their records, lo and behold, no notification to me of the changes, even though they had my phone number and email on record. My next problem was I had to either book a hotel for the night in Houston or stay another night at WDW and take the first flight out of MCO to Houston on Saturday and still be on the same flight if I stayed in Houston. We opted for one more day at WDW. I asked if we could be compensated in any way because either option we chose, it would cost us for an extra night in a hotel. Their response was they were not going to charge us the $100.00 per person ticket change charge. Wasn't that nice of them? LOL.

Well finally the day of our vacation arrives and we arrive at the airport 2 hours eary, we are there by 9:30 am. When it gets close to flight time, I notice the staff at the Continental counter whispering back and forth to each other and not wanting to answer anyone's questions about when the flight was arriving. About 1/2 hour after we were scheduled to depart, the counter staff tell us there is a medical emergency on board and they cannot land at our airport because of weather conditions. I couldn't understand why they couldn't land as it was only at little bit windy and it was sunny. They diverted the flight to Sacramento, 150 miles away and told everyone that after they took care of the emergency, the plane would return and take us to Houston. We were also told to call Continental and reschedule the connecting portion of our flight out of Houston. I was able to reschedule for arrival on Sunday to MCO. At 2:30 pm, still no flight had returned for us. Now we were being told that because of weather conditions that the flight would not return and we could fly out on Sunday. Continental was not willing to compensate anyone because it was now "weather related". A near riot erupted at the Continental counter because of that. After a few minutes, Continental finally admitted that the plane was having mechanical difficulties and they would rebook everyone on America West for either the 3:30 pm or 6:30pm flight to Houston along with picking up hotel for the night.

So now back down to the ticket counter to get rebooked. After waiting 1 1/2 hours for rebooking, they booked us on a 9:40pm to Vegas and we then left Vegas at 12:30 am and FINALLY arrived in Orlando at 8:00am on Sunday.

America West was a great airline and did every thing they could to make us comfortable after a miserable day with Continental's back and forth "excuses". It wouldn't have been so bad if they had just admitted in the first place that the plane was having mechanical problems.

Will most certainly pick another airline next time.

 

[seashoreCM]

All airlines do shenanigans like this.

About having to spend the night in Houston, you should have done some homework to find out whether the original flight still existed and what other choices and other airlines you could fly on.

If your original flight still existed, you do not have to accept their change to another flight, just say so. Airlines more and more these days are calling people up the night before when a flight is overbooked, hoping to convince someone to change their flight plans without the airline's paying bump compensation.

If an original flight does no longer exist and your arrival is delayed by more than a few hours and you cannot find alternate flights to your liking then you are entitled to a full refund for your nonrefundable ticket.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[AllTheWorldsAStage]

I almost always fly Continental -- with no problems. Sorry to hear about your troubles! If I were in your shoes, I'd feel the same way!!

 

[CarolA]

It seems like the Airlines would learn that failure to keep passengers informed is what REALLY upsets them. I get really MAD when airlines act like the plane is on time and it is time to takeoff and no one has actually boarded.

It was incidents like this that turned me off AA for life.

I have heard on other boards that gate agents are under pressure NOT to give out high bump awards and things like overnights. It looks like you got caught in that. I would suggest you write the airline and see if you can get additional compensation, but if you are like me it would be worthless. (AA sent me some coupons, I have never used them. I only fly them on business when NO ONE else goes there!)

 

[seashoreCM]

By writing a letter to someone higher up in the airline, you have a better chance of getting more compensation:

1. Someone with authority to give you what you want will probably get the letter while the gate agent might not have the authority.

2. You can think about what you are going to say, such as list on the paper all the reasons easy to read: one boom two boom three boom and also decide what you think is reasonable compensation to ask for.

Not informing passengers about the status of the plane and its probable departure time is a perfectly good reason to list.

 

[bicker]

The airlines are like roulette. I think you're almost better off sticking with an airline that has done you wrong, since you've already had one disaster with that airline, and you know more about how to handle it, who to talk to, etc. Switching to a different airline just puts you back at Square One: You're just as likely to encounter a similar problem, if not more so, and you don't know as much about how to prosecute a complaint with the new airline.

 

[Jestocost]

Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience, but it can happen on any airline. It's a good example of YMMV in action. You had a great experience on America West, for example, but the airline overall has been ranked as one of the worst for consumers (although they've improved their performance recently). CarolA has sworn off of AA, but I was on 72 American flights this year without experiencing a single cancellation or major delay.

My experience with schedule changes (and we just had one on our last trip to Disney) is that the airline's seem to send the notice about 30 days before your flight, even if the change was made long before that. With AA you can see schedule changes on their site, if you've added it to your "My Reservations" page and/or can search using the record locator. Sounds like Continental's system doesn't work that well.

 

[CarolA]

Let me say that I think that AA is probably a good airline. However, the local airport seems to have gone out of thier way to hire the rudest group of employees I have ever dealt with. I actually complained to the station manager one time and he called me a WITCH (replace the W with a B!) At that point I just walked.

The station manger's excuse was that his employees were in a bad mood because layoffs were occuring. I pointed out that being rude to customers did NOT help you keep your job, but just drove us over to SW. Apparently the mention of SW was what merited be being called a witch. Several of my co-workers were present and they were all amazed since they felt that I was being too nice regarding the situation we were trying to resolve. It got VERY ugly then. We did get on the plane (the agent had THROWN two of our tickets in the trash and the station manager after accusing us of lying found them there and then proceeded to act like we did it. YEP, I can climb over the counter at the check in area! GET REAL!)

So... they lost a flyer who up until that time had been a good 60 flights a year. I guess they did not miss me.

 

[Nick@ VB+OKW]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with Continental. We fly them exclusively(FF miles) out of Cleveland (hub) and have never had a problem.
I would be writing a letter also if I were you..