If you're flying ROC-OAK on CO, you must be flying at least three segments: ROC-EWR/CLE-IAH-OAK. Flying to the Bay Area out of ROC, pricing suggests that CO would prefer to have you on ROC-CLE-SFO. So I suspect you already annoyed them with the odd routing.

I have to say that this kind of 'punishment in the enforcement of rules to the letter' seems like the sort of thing I would want to do if I was CO and could identify some customers as unprofitable. Any chance you're running into this? Since he is well known as an expert FTer, my impression (though I don't know for sure) is that channa is too skilled at finding good fares to be one of CO's most profitable customers...

I'm certainly not one of CO's most profitable customers either, but I have to add that I certainly haven't been treated like that recently: in fact, a trip LHR-(CO coded, VS-operated)-JFK-(DL)-ROC was happily rebooked for LHR-(CO/VS)-EWR-(CO)-ROC when _DL_ made a schedule change, and even though it involved rebooking the CO/VS segment in full Y (from V).

Simply put this is crazy. Given the fare structure of most airlines, the likelihood of their being the orginal fare available is close to 0 unless you pruchased a full fare of some kind.

CO still lives in the world of business travelers being the highest and best use of their seats. Nothing will get a business traveler to change their airlines faster then losing them a day and making no "real" effort to get them to their final destination. BTW that is a service we purchase getting to somewhere we need to be.

An 8 hour schedule change should require all possible effort to get someone where they need to be as close to the original time as possible. If there ever is a PAX bill of rights that section should read as follows:

--In the cases of schedule changes made by the airlines, all efforts will be made to reaccomadate passengers to arrive as close to the originally scheduled flights as possible. For any shchedule change that will involve an arrival at the final destination more then 2 hours after originally scheduled, airlines must review the options on every available carrier and provide transportation on another carrier, if that carrier can get the traveler in earlier then transport on the orginal carrier. If a carrier would like to offer compensation for a traveler to stay with the original carrier for schedule change delays of more the two hours they can do as long as they give the passenger both options--transport on a new carrier and compensation and let the passenger make the choice. Furthermore, in cases of schedule changes beyond two hours, the fare basis for all tickets becomes automatically fully refundable no matter what the restrictions at the time of purchase. Therefore, offering passengers the right to cancel the travel all together.


You can bet the farm the airlines want none of this. My suggestion start doing a better job know before it happens!!!

A ticket I just bought had a CLE-BOS segment downgraded from mainline to RJ. Since this was the only segment that likely would have been EUA'ed, I am not too happy. Now I know what I'm in for when I call to protest the change.

For most fares, CO could in fact operationally switch you to an SFO or SJC flight and say "sorry, your problem getting back to your car, them's the rules."

I don't actually believe this is "enforcing to the letter." If OAK/SFO/SJC are listed as co-terminals for the fare there's no excuse for it not to be done.

But if that is the case and it were me, I'd take the refund and give CO their wish and not do business with them again. It's a chicken excuse for a colossal change on the CO side. If they don't want to do business with someone, fine, that's their right. But to otherwise bone a customer from what they are entitled to -- and in a situation caused by the airline themselves -- that's unethical.

Steve

This is certainly a possibility. I believe the agents are instructed to look at the fare before deciding how to handle situations -- I have experienced a comment about a fare here or there a couple of times, and I've heard of others who have been made to feel like a second-class citizen when flying CO on a cheap fare.

With that said, CO publishes fares for ROC-OAK, so clearly that requires a double connection. At the end of the day, if CO doesn't want people flying ROC-OAK, they should simply not publish a fare for that market. They can publish ROC-SFO and lose any ROC-OAK business to anyone else who can do it with one connect (e.g., DL, UA) or other carriers willing to do it with two, if that's the case.

Anyhow, I'll call back in when I feel like arguing with them some more. Though part of me feels like taking the 9-hour CLE connection they stuck me with. If they knew how much booze I could drink in the PC in 9 hours, they probably would have been more cooperative. ;)

^ ^

Well, I got them to take care of it. They wouldn't do SFO instead of OAK, but they were willing to do EWR instead of ROC. Either that, or put me on DL.

Not sure I follow the logic, but I took the EWR option.

Bizarre, but I'm glad you found something acceptable to you.

I would argue and not take the refund. I recently had the following experience. I booked one of those deals that popped up in the Mileage Run forum from ALB-PHX. They changed my schedule three times (I paid a total of about $131 in L) and after the third change, the connecting flight in CLE was leaving about 2 hours before I would get there...So I called CO, complained that there was a change and noted how I cannot even get to PHX because of the misconnection. The CSR haggled back and forth with me after which she offered to refund my ticket. I said no, I have to get to PHX and get me there one way or another. They offered to bump my flight and have me leave one day later and I said no.

I realized why they did not want to change...Because the cheapest fare on the route was about $1300 RT all booked in Y and with some segments on NW. I said that as a platinum elite they should make an exception for me. After some more haggling and being firm, a different CSR supervisor at the online support desk rebooked me in Y on all the segments including the NW segments.

After having several very generous agents work with me recently on CO schedule changes (obviously, I've been lucky), tonight I got the treatment that channa refers to in the original post of this thread.

I'm flying a low-fare ticket that has a connection through IAH... departure of the first flight gets pushed back by an hour, resulting in a 30-minute IAH connection (legal, but as the CO agent said, "just barely"). So I offer to leave my departure city four hours earlier and take a connecting flight (in a straight line - not enough miles to be worthwhile) to get to IAH to provide a 90-minute connection. The agent does a lot of typing on the computer and says that she is figuring out "how much..." So I stop her and express my surprise. She explains that they can waive the change fee but that I have to pay the change in fare (which is substantial). I graciously thank her and tell her that I am happy to accept the schedule change that gives me a 30-minute connection in IAH.

Thank goodness the priority standby thing seems to be working better now, since I expect I will be flying standby on my misconnect through IAH.

I had a similar change recently as well. They brought my connecting flight up by an hour, giving me only 35 minutes in IAH. Again, I got the usual about it being "legal," and I told them I was uncomfortable with it, and I had booked 90 minutes to be safe.

The agent was powerless, but the supervisor was willing to move me to another flight, but he couldn't find "L" space on any other CO flights. I even offered to return the next day, and he was willing to do that, but there was no "L" space. He told me they were not allowed to override the booking class.

I asked if they can do another carrier, and he said anything with a CO code, so he put me on NW, with a note in the record to provide 100% EQM after fact if I call the OPSC after travel.

Totally bizarre.

My change story has a happy ending
 

Here is my story (this happened about two hours ago): DEN-ROC in August was changed such that my connection time in CLE went from about 40 minutes to 23 minutes. That flight wasn't even available to book any longer due to the connection now being too short. As I was actually going to SYR (booked outbound to ROC due to fare being significantly cheaper at the time; inbound was always SYR-DEN) I asked the phone agent to change the outbound to SYR (that connection was still doable).

When she said something about being able to waive the change fee but not the fare difference, I reminded her that I could always cancel the ticket, get a full refund, and fly AA or NW (which I had done on an earlier trip this year due to the ridiculous connection in CLE).

After about 10 minutes on hold, it was done. Seems like CO always does right by me (albeit with the occasional prodding).

;)

ETA: The deciding factor may have been that my new connection was now illegal...I wonder if that was critical. What exactly are the criteria for a full refund due to a schedule change?

Much of this thread involves ROC. In my experience flying in and out of ROC this year, you needn't really worry what the schedule is since you won't be flying your original itinerary anyway.

My last five trips I've had:
ROC-CLE-DCA become nonstop on US ROC-DCA
BUF-CLE-IAH-EWR-BUF become ROC-CLE-IAH-EWR-ROC
ROC-CLE-IAH-OAK become ROC-DTW-SFO, then ROC-DTW-SEA-OAK, then cancelled (trip-in-vain)
ROC-CLE-IAH become illegal after a schedule change, rebooked as ROC-EWR-IAH, rebooked day-of-travel as ROC-CLE-IAH with the original illegal connection by one agent, then rejected at the gate and rebooked ROC-MSP-IAH by another GA
ROC-EWR-EDI operate on time (just to keep you on your toes!)

The ROC agents really do their best in a difficult situation...

Well CO is at it again. This one was out of their control, and all I wanted was for them to try to help.

CPH-ATL-OAK on DL in BE/F. DL cancels ATL-OAK, and the computer rebooks me on CPH-ATL-SLC-OAK.

All I asked for was for them to contact DL and see if they could put me on an ATL-SFO or ATL-SJC instead of having to make an extra stop that I wasn't originally planning on.

Agent: No.
Me: Can we at least ask?
Agent: No, they won't do it. There's no space.
Me: Can we try? Maybe they won't care. They did cancel the entire flight.
Agent: No, they won't allow it. There's no point.
Me: Can we ask a supervisor?
Agent: There's no space, there's nothing he can do.
Me: Can you book me on CO metal 1-stop then?
Agent: [checks with supv] No.

It'd be one thing if DL shot me down, but CO won't even try to see if DL can assist, even for a Platinum. Yes, I realize it's work for them, but I would certainly think they could try.

So I gave up after that, and she goes on to tell me that there is an extra $6 in taxes per ticket due to the additional connection. Now I don't care about $6, but I was certainly not going to pay CO on that one, not for yet another incident of lousy customer service.

I told her she is not authorized to charge the credit card, and any add collect will be disputed. Then she figured out how to do it without the add collect.

Much as I like CO generally, there's a pretty set formula for situations like these:

Mediocre automation + inadequate agent knowledge + irregular enforcement of contractual terms = sh!tshow.