CO Getting Nasty with Schedule Changes
 

In years of flying CO, CO has always been reasonable in handling schedule changes. Too short a connect, too long a connect, a delay in arrival time, and we always find a way to work something out.

Today I contact the Electronic Support Desk regarding a change -- they pushed my arrival time later, and downgraded a segment from mainline to an RJ. The agent saw my original schedule, saw the concern, and helped me find flights that actually shorten the route a bit, but preserve the equipment and times. She then tells me but she'd have to charge me the fare difference, but could waive the change fee!

I thought she was unclear that there was a schedule change, and she said she understood. but she said that she was not allowed to change the route. Turns out she was a supervisor, so I couldn't escalate. She told me I'd either have to follow the route of the original ticket (and what the computer gave me), or tough luck.

What's odd is that I asked about the possibility of an involuntary refund, and she said she would gladly refund my money. In other words, CO would rather give you your money back than rebook you on another flight.

Anyhow, I obviously was getting nowhere, so I thanked her, called We Care to ask about this (since the we'll refund you but not make a change rule seemed to not make sense), and the agent there researched it and came back with the same answer. She was more willing to help, though, but was constrained in what she was allowed to change.

So it seems that CO agents and supervisors have lost much of their ability to make changes after a schedule change.

What's odd, is that if I were to book the lowest-cost ticket between my city pairs today, that ticket is about $40 less than what I paid. I'm tempted to have them go through the motions of the invol refund and book that.

Anyone else experience new draconian schedule change policies? Did something perhaps change with the new year?

I haven't experienced this, but I'd definitely get them to refund the original ticket and repurchase at the lower fare!

channa: Any reason not to get the refund and purchase a new ticket all the while costing CO some revenue and saving some greenbacks for yourself? Is it because the flight offerings at the cheaper fare are not what you want?

3 weeks ago i had a schedule change on an itinerary i purchased for my 2 daughters and 2 friends flying ewr-mco for a wedding in march. i thought it fortuitous as they wanted to change their trips from the last flight of the night to the second flight the next morning. the csa said she could accommodate the 1st flight the next morning for no fee but not the 2nd. after my tale of being loyal, platinum, suffering co aircraft changes, delayed flights etc, etc, her response was, no. she waived the change fee but insisted on the fare difference. i relented as it was important to our schedule. when the process was finally complete she told me she would also waive the fare increase but in the future don't make a practice of it.
so, at times there is still may be a heart in this company.

I'd take the refund and rebook it :D

The main reason is I paid for part of the original ticket with a voucher, and I really don't feel like babysitting the refund process for a dual payment refund.

I have always found these strict policies nonsensical. You buy a ticket for a given flight and time with the assumption you will take that flight at that time. CO makes a change to suit their purposes, not yours, and then basically has a tough luck attitude.

I belive that if CO makes a schedule change then all bets should be off and they should do whatever they can to accomade you.

I do think I know what happening here/ This is one of those instances were "the computer won't let then change it." They havd designed a system to protect to so strictly protect fare buckets that there is no way to actually accomadate a pax who they have caused a problem for.

The fact that they'd rather return funds then make a customer happy seems backwards and not consistnet with an organization that is at least partially predicated on customer service.

Well, looks like they're at it again.

CO changed one of my flight departures by 8 hours (7am instead of 3pm), and we couldn't find anything at/near my departure time in my city pair (ROC-OAK). We found ROC-SFO that had a very similar schedule to what I originally booked, but the supervisor denied that, saying that a route change would require a refare. :rolleyes:

I'll try again later, but who's got time to bicker with them like this? An 8-hour schedule change is pretty egregious, and we tried in good faith to keep the markets the same. I didn't even suggest the alternate airport (which would have been fewer miles, a near guarantee of no upgrade, and a longer drive home) until we exhausted any other possibilities.

Wirelessly posted (HTCP4350-Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC))

8 hours and the agent wouldn't let you change the route to an alternative city pair?

:td: to that.

That is really unreasonable IMHO. It's not like they slightly misconnected you. They took almost an entire day off of your trip!

Classic CO "service"! I've said it before, CO is the most professional airline, but when it comes to helping you out, they never put any real effort into it.

Aren't SFO and OAK co-airports (and SJC)? They would quickly fly you into DAL instead of DFW and leave you so why can't you request to go to SFO instead of OAK when they are the same thing? ugh.

If this is truly CO's new policy, then it is simply asinine.

[Sarcasm]I truly hope they took time away from implementing changes such as filling middle seats from the back and creating elite priority standby to come up with this gem of a policy[/Sarcasm]

:td:

If this is a new policy then I agree CO really needs to rethink the intent and impact. :td: :td:

So let me see, we who purchase tickets are not readily able to make changes without penalty, but CO can change itineraries by a full business day at their will? That should go over well. Espescially when we can't even see our itineraries online to see if there is a schedule change. :mad:

as always, airlines feel free to make changes at their whim...but, god forbid you want a favor or two. ain't gonna happen.

i've had this debate with a revered member of the flyertalk community that disagrees with the practice of "mistake fares." he feels that people shouldn't take advantage of mistake fares. i, on the other hand, wholeheartedly believe in taking advantage because when I make a mistake, the airlines have no qualms with sticking it to me. so, why shouldn't i do the same?

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.

Not!
 

It is their JOB. Extra work has nothing to do with it, but the lazy idiots don't get that. :td:

Sounds like CO is turning into DL with regard to schedule changes.

Well with Carriers last week annoucing that they are sending some of their Birds out to the desert and reducing capacity due to Fuel Costs. I think we are gonna be seeing alot more in the way of schedule changes and aircraft changes.

Thats besides Carriers announcing they no longer will be serving XYZ. Its gonna get alot uglier before it gets any better.

RULE 24 FLIGHT DELAYS/CANCELLATIONS/AIRCRAFT CHANGES (revised December 7, 2007)

C) Change in Schedule - When a Passenger’s Ticketed flight is affected because of a Change in Schedule, CO will, at its
election arrange one of the following:

1) Transport the Passenger on its own flights, subject to availability, to the Destination, next Stopover point, or transfer point shown on its portion of the Ticket, without Stopover in the same class of service, at no additional
cost to the Passenger, provided that a Passenger who paid a Coach fare will only be transported on a flight in First Class or Business First Class Service subject to seat availability and if such flight will provide an earlier arrival
than CO’s next flight on which coach space is available;

2) Reroute Passengers over the lines of one or more carriers when a Change in Schedule results in the cancellation of all CO service between two cities;

3) Advise the Passenger that the value of his or her Ticket may be applied toward future travel on Continental within one year from the date of issue without a change or reissue fee; or

4) Provide a refund in accordance with Rule 27 A) if the Passenger is not transported as provided in C) 1) or 2) above and does not choose to apply the value of his or her Ticket toward future travel as provided in C) 3) above.

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US...2008031001.pdf

"2) Reroute Passengers over the lines of one or more carriers when a Change in Schedule results in the cancellation of all CO service between two cities"

According to the Supervisor I just spoke with, the interpretation is that this DOES NOT mean there is no cost difference. In my case, Change in Schedule where CO does not have another flight within 24hrs of when I need to fly, they want to charge me 3 times the roundtrip rate to book the departure leg w/ DL.

You know, this is really getting out of control. Perhaps we ought to start filling in a DOT complaint form every time CO tires to jerk us around like this with a schedule change.

Looks like CO is now getting a bit ballsy with changes.

I had a 12 noon flight departing SFO with a connection in IAH. My connecting flight is now running much earlier.

What does CO do? Rebooks me to an 8:00 a.m. departure to meet my newly scheduled connection, reissues the ticket, and shoots me an email. No call, nothing. That's right, four (4) hours earlier, and they don't even call to ask if that's ok?

A similar thing happened to me with DL (but only 1:40 change), and they called to check.

I have a schedule change on my HNL-IAH flt. It is about 45 min earlier, not too much, but I have a connection to HNL that I purchased separately from HA, which I am now going to have to pay a change fee to change to an earlier time in order to make the HNL-IAH flt. Wouldnt have known either, but since I check my res. and seats often I saw the schedule change.

All Airlines Are Getting Nasty
 

DL, US and CO never call me to check. I check my reservations once a week for changes. DL changes schedules as much as I change my socks, but the DL times for me are always within 30 minutes. US was bad but I no longer fly them. I had two problems with CO this year. On one change they gave me just about 1 hour to connect to an AF flight in EWR, when as a matter of policy I won’t connect international in EWR without at least 2 hours. They did not want to put me on the earlier flight because the same fare class was not available. I sent in a letter and got the earlier flight.

This week, on a CO Business award to CAI, Air France canceled a segment. I called CO. They wanted to put me in coach to EWR on an 8AM flight to connect to the AF 7:10 PM from EWR-CDG. I use KVS to find seats. NW had 9 first class award seats on the FLL-DTW nonstop leaving at 11:03 AM, and AF had the two available business seats from DTW-CDG leaving at 6:50 pm. I only needed two seats. The 5 hour layover in DTW is better than the 8 hour layover in EWR. If I was not able to find available business seats with KVS, would I have been forced to fly in coach?

In the old days CO would have opened up the inventory on the 1:41 PM FLL-EWR, giving a 2:10 layover in EWR to connect to the AF flight to CDG which had two award business seats.

AF having canceled the segment that caused the problem, should have opened the award inventory on the MIA-CDG nonstop leaving at 5:40 PM. AF generally opens up the award business inventory on that MIA-CDG nonstop flight about 7-10 days before the flight. I think now I will have to pay $150 a ticket if I want to change to the nonstop if the business class award inventory opens up in November. If you are going from 2 flights to one flight you would think the change fee would be less, because it would seem that CO would be charged less for 1 AF flight than it would for 1 AF TATL flight plus 1 NW domestic flight?

On the DL board there is that post about the honeymoon situation.

Delta Cancels Flight for Honeymoon

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...589&highlight=

We need a general definitive thread on re-routing rights to cope with the massive flight cuts coming in the fall and the re-routing that will result. This is not just a CO issue and in the end CO has generally been better to me than the others.

Over the past few years the airlines have suggested to me when using awards, that I buy a domestic ticket to an international gateway.

As part of the "fall schedule massacre" I had a Saturday morning CO STL-CLE flight changed to Sunday evening.
No call or email.

Called CO and was re-routed STL-IAH-CLE on Saturday.