Originally Posted by westtexas

My experience was that Continental is pretty darn stingy when one is involuntarily downgraded from First. Mrs. Westtexas and I were flying MEX to IAH a couple of days before Christmas in 2005, plane went mechanical, situation goes south. I was on a D fare, which everyone insisted was not a first class fare but instead a coach fare I had upgrade by paying $45 extra. I pointed out that it was clearly listed as international business class, and eventually lost the argument because I just got tired of fighting with people who would not read their own fare schedule.

They eventually gave me $45 per seat. When I emailed LK's office, he put me in touch with someone who tried very hard to be helpful. She did give me additional compensation, but kept repeating the line that I had upgraded a coach ticket even after I sent in docs showing I had bought a ticket with a fare basis of D. I also sent in web print outs of what it would have cost to buy a coach ticket going out and a first ticket coming in. Even with the additional compensation, I got less than that fare difference. Worse yet, nobody admitted what class of ticket I had actually purchased in spite of printed evidence.