I vaguely remember getting these perforated comment cards from Continental where you can compliment great service in the mail. Are these considered valuable and the best way to recognize someone’s service? The only issue is that I’m not sure if I still have these at home. I also received a “Customer Care” mailer to fill out – is that just for rants or are compliments acknowledged on this form too?

The short story is that I started off having a bad experience on an overbooked flight where I got moved 3 times before take off. At the end it worked out where I finally got my upgrade while one attendant consistently paid attention to me and even helped me move my luggage, which is why I want to call out her service.

If anyone cares to know the full story, the very full story is below:
I was flying EWR –> IAH, and sure, I was not expecting an upgrade at all. I’m a Gold Elite with a B economy fare, but I did see that my name was listed second on the first class upgrade standby list. Before boarding, the gate agent was begging for 6 volunteers to take a later flight, and there were still no takers while elite access was boarding. In addition, I used my blackberry to carry a paperless ticket that has a barcode displayed on the screen.

I started off in row 23 in Economy, and after 10 minutes, another passenger comes by and shows me his paper ticket that has the same exact seat as mine. I try to pull up my paperless ticket on my blackberry, and I get an error message that I can no longer access it. So, having no paper ticket to prove my name, status, or seat number really overcomplicated matters from the start. I had to hand my phone over to the flight attendant and have her show the gate agent to sort out the seat. I told them that I did see my name as second on the waiting list for an upgrade, so I suspected that was why there was a seat conflict.

After about 5 minutes, I’m told that I am in row 1 in first class but not given a new paper ticket. Very happily I move my stuff to the front, and right when I’m about to settle in, a different man shows his paper ticket displaying that same seat in row 1 (and he was also in the same situation as me where he had a conflicting seat in economy and had to get reassigned). I realize I have nothing to prove it, but I see on the other passenger’s ticket that he’s a Silver Elite. Now, I just looked up the “Battlefield Upgrade” system, and I realize now that if he were a Silver Elite on a Y ticket, he had full rights over me for that seat. However, back then I did not know that, and I thought B and Y fares were in the same bucket, and that my Gold status would have trumped his Silver. At this point I feel rather demoralized because I have no paper ticket to prove my status and one of the male stewards in first class gives me a look like I’m trying to poach an empty seat because I’m in mid-twenties but look younger in general, and I was traveling street clothes instead of work clothes.

So, the flight attendant says that I should take my stuff and talk to the gate agent outside for my proper seat. This makes me rather alarmed because we are nearing departure time on an overbooked flight, so I was afraid the flight would leave without me if I left the plane.

I caught the gate agent in the catwalk area, and she said that there is an empty seat in row 35 for me. The flight attendant helped me back to my seat and thanked me for being so sweet about moving, and I told her I understood it was an oversold flight and that I was grateful to just even have a seat. But I did tell her I was pretty disappointed that I am now 12 rows farther back from my original starting point when my original seat was confirmed on my itinerary, and that I didn’t understand why the other passenger got the seat before I did because I was Gold on a B fare and he was Silver. At this point she gives me the Customer Care form and promises that she’ll take care of me.

About 5 minutes later, someone else comes up to me and tells me I can now move to row 5 in First Class. I ask if I can have a paper ticket because this would be the 3rd time I’m moving, and the lady says she’ll give it to me later. Some other passengers take my seat, and then I finally find an empty seat in First Class that seems to belong to me. Finally all things are settled, and the flight attendant that stuck with me the whole time even grabbed my back from economy and brought it up to First Class. The unnerving thing is that I still never received my new paper ticket.

So, one take away from this whole event is that even if you go the paperless route using your phone through security, it’s best to grab a printed boarding passing inside the terminal. I learned this the hard way, and in general, it takes longer for each checker to scan the barcode.

Now that I reflect back on this experience, a second question I have is whether anyone else experienced this much trouble using the mobile phone / PDA paperless ticket, or was I just unlucky?