In the space of a week I was 'accidentally' removed from two flights (actually five segments on two separate trips):

#1 - We were moved off of our homebound flights (HNL-IAH-AUS) and moved to flights for which we were waitlisted (HNL-IAH-AUS), but they moved us to flights on a *different day*! I only found out because I randomly called to check if we had, by any chance, been moved-over to the other flight. No explaination was offered or given.

#2 - I was completely removed from my entire return trip (BTR-IAH-AUS) and only found out when I went to check-in online!


#1 - Color - I had to spend about 2 hours of my vacation time getting it fixed. They got us back on the original flights, but we ended-up in a limited reclinine back-row (BF seat). I told them no way, it was their mistake fix it. It took three calls of them telling me it was impossible to move us back to the original seat, which they finally did in about 5 minutes when I made it clear I would not drop the issue. I would have just stayed an extra day in Hawaii, but had a meeting I had to be back for.

#2 - Color - I was dropped from my return flights because I skipped the first outbound segment. Apparently, that's the way it works. Unfortunately, I was concerend about that and called CO and asked before I booked my next ticket (which cut out that segment) and the agent said no problem and did not warn me. I also told the gate agent who took my boarding pass on my first (originally second) outbound flight. He said it was not big deal and would not cause any issues...How can two CO employees wrongly advise me about something so important.

I'd add to all this that many of the airport and airplane crew I've encountered the past couple of weeks have been downright surley. My wife and I made a game of trying to get the attendent (in F) to try and smile or say "you're welcome" just once on our LAX-IAH flight. We failed...

What's up with CO!?!?!? Did I just get lucky or are others experiencing more problems recently?

Interestingly enough, I asked an agent what she thought. She did not say I just had a streak of bad luck. She actually said that things like this are becoming more common at CO with people traveling more, employees under more stress, etc.

I fly a fair amount (aprox 140 CO segments last year) and did not have as many issues as I've had in the past few weeks...

Any thoughts?