*warning* forced baggage check in at gate to get bag fee
 

Earlier today I was on CO 34 from AUS to IAH. This was the first leg of my travel to Buenos Aires. I was traveling on a full fare business first ticket.

I have a standard wheel bag carry on which I have traveled with on many Continental flights. It has always fit in the overhead no problem. I am not one of these people that crams an oversize bag into the overhead bin.

When I went to board the plane, the gate agent was tagging every bag in front of us. They were *not gate checking*, they were putting full check-in tags on them to the final destination. Since I was in first class they said my bag would be fine and to go ahead and board.

Upon reaching the aircraft entrance the flight attendant said I was not allowed to board with the bag. I explained I was in first class and the gate agent said it would be ok. The flight attendant said absolutely not.

I had planned on carrying this bag on board because it had sensitive computer equipment. It is a large part of the reason that I bought a fully paid business first ticket. I went back up the gateway and discussed w/ the gate agent about being re-accommodated on a later flight to Houston. Nothing was available. After much debate, I eventually talked her into just checking my bag to Houston instead of my final destination (Buenos Aires). This was a less than ideal solution, but better than checking it to Buenos Aires. Something which was not an option as I've had many problems with items "disappearing" from checked baggage to BA.

Finally I boarded the flight and took my seat in 1E. I then opened the overhead bin to see if there was room for my computer bag. Upon opening it I come to find that it was *COMPLETELY EMPTY*. I talked to the flight attendant who said that no rolling bags would fit there anyway (this is a 737-500 w/ a smaller sized rolling bag that I'd put on board the same aircraft many times in the past). After some protest, she said fine go get your bag, but it had already been taken down below.

While this has no effect on me as a gold elite it seems they wanted to force people to check their bags to get the extra fee. I've never encountered this and have only seen them gate check bags. It is my theory that this must be a new Continental policy. The gate agents and the crew seemed thoroughly exhausted as they had a ton of passengers complaining.

The ironic part is that I am all for limiting the size of oversize bags and charging people who try to get a bag too large as a carry on. However, I am a five-year gold elite paying full fare business first w/ a bag that I know fits in the overhead and I got caught in this crazy net.

I would issue this as a word of caution. And if any of my equipment got damaged, I will be really irate. I thin Continental needs to be aware of this and in my experience this is the most effective forum for that, so here I post this notice.

At a minimum this policy was enforced in an extremely poor manner.

This has to be a group "going rogue"............I hope

Doesn't sound like policy. Sounds like either a rogue GA or FA, probably the FA based on your interaction with her.

Possibly. Though, I fly a lot and I have seen these same gate agents as recently as last Thursday when I flew to Newark. Nothing like it.

So maybe it was a rogue FA saying no more carryons, and the GA just complied with it. Your secondary check at the boarding door leads me to believe that's the case.

You may want to write it in a complaint. If others did the same, CO can figure out who the problem is.

That still doesn't explain the absolute insistence to fully check in the bag to the final destination and deny all gate checks by the gate agents. In fact they acted like I was insane suggesting that they might gate check the bag. I would have been mildly ok w/ a gate check. It was the insistence on fully checked in to the final destination (and then of course combined w/ the fact that the overhead was in fact empty) that really got me.

Try this, it sounds a lot more plausible, especially with the lovely agents out of AUS:

The agents in AUS were wanting to be proactive regarding a route that normally runs out of bin space. They started (perhaps, a little too early), checking bags at no charge. And yes, they were gate checking them. That's what it is when you check a bag at the gate, and unless you are on Express or Connection, it always goes to your final destination, unless you request that it go to Houston, where you will have to leave security, go to baggage claim, and then back through security for your connecting flight. Thought it isn't always done like this, especially at out stations - all gate checked bags are supposed to have actual bag tags, not just the blue ones. No one was having to pay extra, that's an assumption you incorrectly made.

So yes, it was unfortunate that they were tagging bags too early - but that's it. No one was paying extra (again, all gate checked bags are supposed to get the actual bag tags, though this is rarely the case), and they were, in fact, being "gate checked".

I witnessed something similar on a PHX-IAH flight before Christmas last year. One GA was "randomly" selecting people and forcing them to pay to check their carry-ons. Now some of the carry-ons were in fact too large, but some were borderline and while the "cop" GA was busy processing the bag fees and tagging the bags the other GA allowed people to board, sometimes with bags larger than those that were carried by PAX that had been forced to check their bag.

I have no problems with GAs making people pay to check bags that have no business being carried on, but I do have a problem with selective enforcement such as I witnessed and I have a problem with what was described by the OP.

I have not seen where CO charges for checking the bag at the gate. If you get it through the TSA X-Ray slot - and take it to the gate - they do not charge. At least in the pass, maybe the policy has changed.

The only time you will ever have to pay at the gate is if you bag is oversized and should never have been brought on in the first place, or if you brought too much on. And that's only when you should be charged - I see this very rarely. Granted, I'm all for agents enforcing it more - if people know they won't get away with bringing more than they should and have to pay, they won't try in the first place. In a perfect world, at least.

While I have no direct evidence that people were charged for these - and maybe they weren't - my main point is that it seems to trend toward a policy change.

Where I disagree w/ you emphatically is when you say all gate checked bags are really "checked in" to their final destination. I have been on many, many, many flights where people simply pick their bags up at the gate when they deplane. Thus the term "gate check."

CO mainline always fully checks. That's their policy. They don't do Express-style gate delivery except for wheelchairs and strollers and things like that.

The fact that the GA short-checked your bag to IAH was bending the rules to help you, almost as if she didn't buy into what she was doing. That's why I think the FA was the culprit, and the GA didn't want to cause trouble by defying the flight crew's request.

Trust me - on mainline Continental Airlines - your gate checked bag always goes to baggage claim. "Special Handling" items (musical instruments, wheelchairs, strollers, etc) are brought back up to the jetway - but luggage is never brought back up unless it is on ExpressJet, Chataqua, or Colgan.

Agreed. I have seen gate agents start tagging bags before we run out of space, but what is suspicious here is how the FA was very adamant about him not bringing the bag on. I have no problem making room for the very last bag. I don't see why this is so difficult for some of my coworkers.

Not true. *Normal* people - i.e. non-elites - pay to check even one bag:

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US.../checkbag.aspx

My point is that IMO this has encouraged more people to try to bring on bags as carry on that should have been checked. As such, CO is responding w/ these more strict policies, which would be considered a version of a "carry on bag" fee. Something which, again, I would not be against. But do take exception to as an international first class passenger.