The OP's story surprises me, particularly because I've had great service from Continental's reservations agents. (Disclaimer: I'm a former customer of US Airways and United, so any exchange with a telephone agent that is intelligible, productive, and uninsulting can rise to the level of "great.")

Most recently, I was booked on an LGA-CLE-DEN routing with my wife and child. Due to a schedule change, we ended up with a six-plus hour layover in CLE in both directions. The agent I spoke with was able to get us on the EWR-DEN nonstop both ways, but could only assign three separate seats on the outbound.

"Don't worry," he said. "I've got a list of reservations here that I'll check in on a couple times a week when it gets slow and fix if things have changed." I was skeptical that he'd follow through, but about three weeks later, I get an e-mail from Continental advising me that the outbound now has three seats together.

To me, that's going above and beyond to fix my problem even though a solution was not available at the time I initially called. What I find even more impressive is the fact that I've got no status at all with OnePass.