Why Continental can blow me... Options

[Hartmann]

I have been switching back and forth between AA and Continental (CO) for work so that I can gain status on both of them (I have status on AA but I want Executive Platinum), so I decided to take CO for a vacation to Boston. My girlfriend and I were flying out of IAH at 7:40am so we arrived at 6am and got in line, which was out the door because of Spring Break.

We waited in line for about 30 minutes till a lady a came up to me, asked if I had checked-in online (I had) and asked if I had my confirmation number (I didn't have a printer so I said "No"). She told me to go to the Continental.com bag drop, we did.

We get over there and wait 45 minutes because they were having trouble with some people's bags and finally got to the kiosk, where it asked me for my confirmation number. I called over a CO employee and told her that I didn't have the number and in a rude tone she tells me that's all we can use in that line. I explain to her how we were sent over from the other line even though I didn't have a confirmation number. She goes on to tell me to get my confirmation # or go to the other line. I call a friend who logs into my e-mail account, gets my confirmation # and helps me out, or at least I thought. After the bickering and waiting and finally getting the # into the machine, the window for us to use the kiosk to check bags had expired (30 minutes before flight). The CO employee that had been rude has the gall to laugh at us... I almost lost it but didn't want to get arrested.

She directs us to the line we had come from even though there were people behind the counter who could have helped us and got us on our way.

We head back to the other line and wait, me knowing at this point it would be a miracle for us to make our flight. Then after waiting 10 minutes, the employee who was rude, comes over, opens our line and directs about 10 people, including us back to where we just came from to check our bags.... None of the people had their confirmation numbers but the people behind the counters helped them. They finally helped us but we had missed our flight. CO put us on standby for the next flight (which was oversold) and then finally confirmed us for the flight after that. Basically we sat in an airport for 10 hours.

I went to customer service and complained, a lot. They gave me a $5 voucher (each) for a drink or set of headphones on the flight... unbelievable.

Then to top it all off, during this process they had deleted our reservation, rebooked it, but did it incorrectly, putting my girlfriend and I on separate flights. They fixed that finally but didn't have us sitting together. At least the folks at BOS were nicer and got us seats together.

Just a bad experience.

[Hartmann]

Impala, you are pointing out the distinct difference in how legacy carriers and low cost carriers do business. Legacy carriers rely on their hubs so that they can destinations that SW can't, such as Cattletsburg, KY, somewhere I have to go next week.

Lubbock is a poor choice to do your comparison shopping because it's basically a regional airport with only a few flights to anywhere but Texas destinations (ATA flies to HON out of LBB, btw).

I flew SW out of there simply because I didn't want to fly in the puddle jumper regional jets that CO and AA operate. You notice Delta and United both dropped out of Lubbock... It wasn't a profitable market. People weren't trying to go from Lubbock to Chicago or Lubbock to Atlanta. They were trying to go from Lubbock to Vegas and Lubbock to Albuquerque or Houston. SW is perfect for that situation.

A friend and I flew from Lubbock to Seattle on SW and it sucked. We connected in Las Vegas (after a 3 hour wait), then we lost two hours because of the time change. We could have just flown AA to DFW and got a quick connection to Seattle.

It's 6" one way, half a foot the other.

I think Austin is a better choice for doing price comparisons. You can do United, JetBlue, Frontier, AA, Delta, SW, and Continental out of there and some of them don't have connections.

Also, I'd like to point out that while most of my SW experiences have been good ones, there have been some pretty bad ones as well.

In other news, this is huge for people traveling to Europe: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/200...-approved_N.htm

[impala454]

Impala, you are pointing out the distinct difference in how legacy carriers and low cost carriers do business. Legacy carriers rely on their hubs so that they can destinations that SW can't, such as Cattletsburg, KY, somewhere I have to go next week.

Lubbock is a poor choice to do your comparison shopping because it's basically a regional airport with only a few flights to anywhere but Texas destinations (ATA flies to HON out of LBB, btw).

ok so lubbock is a bad choice, but Cattletsburg, KY is?

You notice Delta and United both dropped out of Lubbock... It wasn't a profitable market.

it wasn't profitable for them, because everybody flies SW

A friend and I flew from Lubbock to Seattle on SW and it sucked. We connected in Las Vegas (after a 3 hour wait), then we lost two hours because of the time change. We could have just flown AA to DFW and got a quick connection to Seattle.

so AA has some kind of magic device that eliminates the time change between lubbock and seattle? and you'd rather add two hours to your flight right up front by going to DFW on the way?

Also, I'd like to point out that while most of my SW experiences have been good ones, there have been some pretty bad ones as well.

well that's understandable, but your thread started with you bitching about CO

I personally have never had any bad experiences with SW. has there been delayed flights? of course, but any airline will have problems with weather and such. if there is a connection, the gates are usually very close together, the seats are bigger, and I can sit where I want. I've sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting for CO to fix the damn plane. with SW only using one plane, it seems to eliminate or shorten these problems. i think it's very smart business (which is pretty obvious by how well they're doing).