It was one of those days, happened to Carpwife, but I was on the receiving end, sitting at MDW waiting for her.

Award travel for her and sprog, from PHL. CLE connection was tight, but that was what was available, so take your chances. Inbound to PHL delayed, connection now tenuous at best. Wifey calls me from airport and wants to know what to do. Since there is a chance of still making it, I tell her to get protected on the next connection (getting in about 8p) but to maintain what she was originally booked at. I also tell her to get to the gate and confirm that this is what was done.

She does both and in conversation she asks me to look at her record. I do and see that it contains her flight as the later connection, not the original one. I tell her to immediately go to the gate and get it mentioned that she should have the earlier connection in the record. They make a note of the mistake made in the record. She was told that if she can make the earlier connection to get there and they will accommodate her.

She gets to CLE and sure enough there is enough time. In fact, almost 15 minutes of time. She goes to the gate and the GA won't let her on - says her BP is for the later flight and since she checked a bag she can't get on the earlier one. No matter that she WAS on the earlier one and they changed her by mistake, and noted in the record as such.

Wifey calls me and I tell her to get a supervisor. She asked GA and GA says "there are no supervisors around and none can be contacted". GA refuses to do anything. At this point, the GA, in the midst of working the flight, picks up and leaves! Another GA had to be found and came over to finish the flight's work. The new GA stated the original GA just 'walked off the job'.

This new GA gets a ramp person to go look for her bag (it's bright pink). RA finds it, brings it up, takes her and bag down to plane (hardstand) only to have the Capt. refuse boarding as he already has his W&B figures (understandable).

Wifey misses flight and has to wait for next one. This as Thur. night when all the horrific weather passed through the midwest. The flight she was to be on made it into MDW ahead of the storms. Wifey spent the night at the CLE HI.

It is amazing how all these things conspire together to mess up a trip.

What is the deal with the bags and changing connections? This makes no sense, she started the trip and flew with her bags on the first leg. If CO misconnected the bags they'd have no problem in putting them on a flight w/out its owner being there, so why this?

Are the CLE people Expressjet or CO? Does complaining (and giving compliments for the other agents who were most helpful) carry any weight if they aren't CO people?

started to read this and have to say that i have no idea what any of this means. sprog?

english?

(and, the topic title could use a helping hand, as well.)

Hmmm...OP's handle is carpboy, so it is pretty likely that carpwife would be his wife. And context would lead me to believe that sprog is someone traveling with her, probably related to them, which makes it either a parent or child.

sbm12's translation service - helping FTers since 2001 (R)


To the OP, I've had agents give me terrible trouble with protecting me on later flights recently, generally being unwilling to do it, despite the fact tha tthey know they can. I had one tell me they "don't ever do that for anyone" and then the next agent 3 minutes later tell me that the firt agent probably just saw the flight was sold out so they couldn't make it happen and didn't know why. He was able to protect me kn othe first flight the next morning no problem, though it ended up not being necessary.

Unless you think that there are a lot of people who are also going to misconnect onto the later flight, causing it to have no room for you, making the call too early can backfire, especially when the CSRs aren't paying attention and/or misunderstand your intentions, which is sadly what happened to your wife.

You must consider who initiated the disconnect between a bag and an owner. If the owner volunteers for the separation, it's a security concern, and it will be denied as such.

If the airline volunteers the separation, it's not viewed as a security issue, and you are allowed to board without your bag being with you.

I thought those notions were abandoned after universal Xray of checked luggage came around.

The disconnect was airline initiated in this case, they never should have changed her official ticket to the next flight. After the fact when it was pointed out to them, she was told not to worry and to take the earlier flight if she made it in on time.

No, the positive bag match program is still in effect. The way it was described above is the simple version of the rules.

Child. pl - sproggen.

I've had similar problems when I asked to be protected on a later connecting flight. The agent moved me instead of just protecting me with a backup reservation. I suspect that either CO looks upon protection differently from other airlines or that the agent involved somehow did not understand my very clear request.

i figured out what carpwife meant.

If you back someone up on another Co flight due to a possible misconnection, you would be taking a seat out of inventory that Co might be able to sell. Probably be a full fare walk up price but things do happen.

They CAN do it correctly. They just don't do it very often.

When I struggled with it a couple of weeks ago it took getting an agent on the phone who actually understood what I wanted and who was willing to note my Platinum status as the reason for doing it. My offer to buy the refundable ticket with full knowledge that I didn't plan on using it probably didn't hurt the situation either.

While waiting and the inevitable approaching, I called personally and got her protected on the first AM flight the next day.

Sure enough, when the plug was pulled, I told her to hang tight as I called back. I explained that they needed to be rebooked and I was told everything for the next day was full. I then said they had two seats protected and sure enough, there they were and booked on a stuffed full day.

So when done myself it all worked. But woe to the newbie.

You know, all of you that have been doing this game for a while now, it used to be no big deal. Get interrupted and worse was an intermediate hotel night and an early flight. Now, with fleet shrinkage and sky high load factors, an interruption can very realistically mean an afternoon flight 2 DAYS LATER!

You have to be ahead of the interruption curve anymore and have plans in place or else.

So true.

I have found DL to be quite liberal on holding one flight and protecting another. Of course, if my hub was ATL I would be too .

But really, this should be easy to accomplish; even more so if inventory is availble. Of course the possibilty exists for a lst second seat sale but airlines do, or at lest used to, have some resposnibilty for actually getting you were you are going.