I realize that my voice will not be heard, but our most recent flight was the last straw and I want to complain. An unknown Continental agent logged into my record at midnight before departure and it took almost an hour at the baggage drop to resolve the issue. But the last straw was the lost luggage----the third lost bag in six flights!! It was actually a bag checked in by my spouse, independent of my ticket problems. All bags have been checked in with at least one hour to spare, complete with ID and Elite priority tags with the correct destination codes (I alway check!) . Last week my bag from IAH went to Boston instead of Tampa, and it was more than 24 hours before it was back in my possession. Several times it has taken two days. Would a letter or phone call be best? Flying next week, going with carryons. Thanks

Writing is always better. Calling the "we care" line is a joke (if you call it on the weekends or after hours - its goes to regular reservations). Its more like we care for your business.

An unknown agent? How do you know this? What did this agent do? A little more information is needed for this to help understand the problem.

On the luggage issue you must be having really bad luck. In all my years flying CO/NW the only time I've had a luggage problem was when it involved a connection with KLM. This is def. worth complaining about. It'd be interesting to see why it happened. Were there any gate changes for these flights? Plane swaps? Did you get re-routed or standby for another flight after the bags had been tagged? All of these can cause mis-directed baggage. If it took more then 24hrs while you were away from home for it to be delivered, then they should have provided you with some type of compensation.

Here's more info: the agent at baggage drop told me that a Continental agent had logged into my record at midnight before departure and given me a first class upgrade was not proper. She treated me like I "knew" someone at Continental and had caused this myself. She treated me like I was the guilty party! First, I know no one at Continental and was not at all responsible for this. I had checked in about 24 hours before departure, and affirmed that I wanted to be placed on the Elite upgrade list. She said that she couldn't check me in until she took away my illegal first class upgrade. I demanded some more information, and she finally told me that the agent that had done this hadn't been on duty for at least 48 hours and someone else had used her ID! Finally after almost an hour, a supervisor came and took away the upgrade and my bag was finally checked in. Luckily I had arrived two hours early. (By the way, I did clear the upgrade list legally at the gate!)

As for the baggage problems, I have flown a million plus miles domestically and internationally for years, and until this year, had only one lost bag (Southwest). All flights have been non-stops from IAH to destinations like TPA and DTW, orignial aircraft, no gate changes, no re-routes, , no gate changes. and my baggage, properly labeled has been checked-in with plenty of time to spare.

I think Continental is trying to tell me to fly someone else after all these years of loyalty.

Would a letter or phone call be best?

It won't matter. In my experiences with CO, your compensation will be minimal at most.

Long post follows.

Interesting posts about lost luggage and rude CO employees.

I had a very upsetting experience, but I found that CO employees were very courteous and concerned.

Flew from Ft. Lauderdale to Newark to Washington D.C. (Reagan). But our luggage (properly tagged) did not arrive.

I was in D.C. for 6 days of business meetings. Wife and I had nothing but what we were wearing on the flights.

Filed a report at Reagan with baggage service agent. Was told that for unknown reasons our luggage was not showing up in the tracking system. Apparently (??) it was not scanned in FLL, so it did not show up in the computer. (Nobody every could explain why our bags did not show up in the system.)

Needless to say, I was concerned that there was no record of my luggage despite the bar-coded claim tag I held in my hand.

Was told that luggage would probably be on next flight. We waited but it did not show. 3 more flights that evening from EWR to DCA.

So we went to the hotel with a promise that luggage would be delivered that night.

It was not.

Next morning I called CO and was told they still had no idea where my luggage was. They had issued a world-wide alert to all stations asking them to look for our luggage.

Very nice CO baggage agent authorized $300 (not sure, I think it was $300) for clothes so I could at least get something to wear to my first meeting. Assumption was that luggage would be found and would arrive soon.

A few hours later CO found my luggage. In Hong Kong!!

Nobody could explain how luggage destined for DCA went to Hong Kong, or how luggage could go half way around the world without a passenger on the plane to associate with that luggage.

Anyway, CO said it would take another 48 hours to get the luggage back to me. This meant no clean clothes for 3 days.

Immediately the CO agent changed the authorization to $500.

Went out and purchased enough clothes to make due in the interim and, eventually, our luggage did show up at the hotel.

Now, it did take almost 90 days for CO to reimburse me for the authorized expenses, but the check finally arrived.

I can say that throughout the experience every CO employee seemed genuinely concerned and tried to be helpful -- starting with the baggage agent at DCA and extending to each of the One Pass elite customer service agents who conducted the search for the luggage and who authorized and then reauthorized compensation for the routing screw-up.

I was very pleased with the effort and sincerity of CO employees when CO screwed-up. They tried to make it right. ^

socref

I find it pretty pathetic in this age of everything being scanned and labeled, not to mention the security requirements for bag matching, that this kind of nonsense still happens as much as it does.

I think you'll find that there's a lot less lost luggage nowadays than there used to be. After viewing the IAH baggage system from the inside out I'd have to say I am definitely impressed.

I've had two CO baggage problems in the last few years and both times CO handled things extremely well, particularly with regard to offering compensation and getting things to us as fast as possible. I can tell you that Delta was the pits when a friend who was visiting us had a lost bag last year. We couldn't even talk to anyone in the US as the Delta baggage department seems to have been outsourced to India and none of those people could do anything for us except tell us to wait.