Originally Posted by PSU Mudder

As I feared, this fee has beome a toll booth in the effort to arrive home on-time.

Yesterday Mrs. Mudder and I were transiting EWR on our way from SXM to PIT. We were booked on the later flight to PIT, 3240 scheduled to depart at 8:05pm and arriving at 9:57. There is an earlier flight, 3238, that is scheduled to depart at 6:00pm. Our arriving flight, 860, was scheduled for 5:36pm, so I had to book the later flight as the earlier would have been too tight a connection, especially with customs.

Of course, flights were backed up at EWR last night, so when 3238 was delayed until 7pm and 3240 was already showing a 40 minute delay, I went to the PC to get on the standby list. The agent, while helpful, was unable to get us on the list as the flight was already under "gate control", and when she attempted to call the gate no one answered. We returned to the gate, and when the agent appeared, he said "you have to go to the service center, and it's $50" I replied "Since this flight and my later flight are delayed, isn't this irregular ops?" "No", he replied. I then asked why he wouldn't take the fee at the gate. He curtly said "You have to go to the service center, and pay the $50 there"

I hustled back the the PC, where the PC agent obviously had the problem of trying to collect the fee while being unable to confirm our seats because the gate had control. After a few phone calls to the gate and help desk, she managed to charge us the $75 for the two of us (Mrs. Mudder is not elite). The agent said there were 3 seats available, which I confirmed on the pda site, but she told me I had to go back to the gate for BPs. I returned to the gate and handed the GA my receipts, and he told me there was only one seat available. I checked the pda site and saw that we were not on the standby list, yet somehow CO had managed to take our $75.

Luckily, after boarding there were still 2 seats available and the GA put us on the flight. We arrived at the gate in PIT around 9:25, 30 minutes before our originally scheduled time. Flight 3240 arrived at the gate at 10:57, one hour late.

As far as I'm concerned, CO can have all the revenue it wants from people who change their mind and want to leave earlier in the day. Good for them. But given that EWR is obviously a problem airport where they overschedule flights, this fee ultimately puts me in a situation where I try to be nimble to get home some time around when CO originally has me scheduled, and CO now wants to charge me for that.

(as an aside, I'm assuming this was just a one off GA who wouldn't take my credit card, I'm hoping sending people to the service center isn't new policy)