My Silver wife yesterday was scheduled to fly on a reward ticket the following itinerary:

GSO-EWR-IAH with a 32 min connection in EWR. On arrival at the airport - the inbound aircraft was abt 30 Mins late - and she asked to be booked on the direct flight to IAH 10 mins after the GSO-EWR flight. She was denied that change because "it was a mileage ticket" and she indicated that it was possible that she would mis-connect in EWR because of the late arriving aircraft. They refused again - saying that the plane was full. The plane actually departed with three empty seats on it, she found out from another gate agent who told her when she asked about her misconnect. "Why didn't you get put on the direct?"

Long story short - Plane landed in EWR at 1952 (she called me), sat on the ramp until 2027 at the jetbridge while the EWR-IAH flight departed without her. CO REFUSED to assist with overnight accomodations blaming the delay on "weather" as told by one CSR and another CSR to be ATC delays. Excuses excuses. She went to the P Club in EWR - where without even looking at her record they gave her a hotel list, and no compensation voucher for her hotel.

So - with no help from the CSR, or the P-Club manager, or the elite line - where and when do you throw in the towel to get help? I have my own opinions as I do about 120 AIS segments on CO per year and have certain expectations on the level of service expected from CO and the P-Club. Of course - the next avenue is customer service - but that's always a guess..

Pleased to hear any advice?

I'm unsure why they didn't put her on the GSO-IAH direct if it was available. Had she checked bags on the GSO-EWR-IAH flight? Did you call the plat line when you knew of her situation? OTOH, I wouldn't do a 32 min connection in EWR if it was the last flight of the night you are connecting to.

I would like to know why CO considers a failure to connect a jetway to an aircraft to be a weather-related delay.

CO Agents in GSO are notoriously unhelpful IMHO and have never been willing to go the extra mile... Have had that problem myself and gone thru the elite line to get resolved. I did call the Plat line when I figured it out - but by that time after the counter agent had checked her bags - it was too late.

Aircraft was on the ramp - waiting for other aircraft to get out of the way.

I am trying to figure out what their basis was for calling it a "weather" issue:

http://www.wunderground.com/history/...q_statename=NA

No rain, no mid-May snow, and fairly low winds.

GSO had light rain and low winds.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe the inbound aircraft to GSO got delayed? But even then, they're going to blame a delay on extremely light rain?

Perhaps he misheard the agent. It may have actually been a whether-related delay (i.e., a delay affecting whether you reach your destination or not).

All joking aside, sounds like your wife got a big heaping plate of lousy service. This would be an opportune time to hunt some compensation. Whereas United has a year-round compensation hunting season, I believe CO's only begins on the Twelfth of Never, as they're woefully stingy in that regard.

I'll say. By the end of the evening I was furious with CO. My wife who travels with me and knows that I usually get what I want was in tears in the P Club just wanting to go home...

So.. after a conversation with the P Club Manager - where I explained in nice terms that I would appreciate her assistance - as I know the service levels that should be expected - came out and turfed off my wife with the statement that "Your husband expects that he should get special treatment because he is a P Club member and flys alot with CO." which was not the intention - but was appealing to her to help with the service level which should be expected. The P Club manager didn't even look into her record.

Lousy service is an understatement... The letter to Customer Service will go out...

One guess would be that the flight at the occupied gate was delayed for weather/ATC reasons. Thus, because the gate to be used for the OP's wife's flight was occupied due to a weather delay, the late arrival of that flight was weather-related. to CO.

WOW! Talk about adding insult to injury. What an awful thing to say to your wife. Since it clearly wasn't weather; they should have been more than willing to help her. She absolutely was entitled to hotel and food vouchers. I would expect that in escalating this, you will be able to get compensation - at least you should.

I trust you got the rude PC Manager's name and will be filing a complaint in that regard, as well? From hearing what you've said, the level of service your wife received on this trip was completely unacceptable. Please let us know what sort of response you get back from CO. Also, though common sense generally indicates it, the keys to a good compensation letter are:

1. Brevity (outlining the relevant facts succinctly and in a straightforward fashion)
2. Politeness (I suspect the angry diatribes just get shredded, or passed around for a laugh)
3. (Optional) - Suggest a reasonable response by CO (compensation or otherwise) that would best address your concerns.

This is EWR, after all, so the manager's behavior is par for the course.

I believe CO constructing a gulag at Goose Bay could go a long ways towards improving employee behavior at EWR. Having extra staff on hand to refuel the "nonstop" 752s from TXL couldn't hurt, either.

I thought of that; but I've also had some truly wonderful PC agents help me - going above and beyond (and yes, I wrote a letter because of it prasing them) and would hope that EVEN though it's EWR, they could do better than this.

I think your wife made a reasonable request to be put on the direct flight since Continental's delay would most likely adversely affect the rest of her connections. That request absolutely should have been accommodated if there was a seat available.

I can't believe the P-club manager made that statement to your wife. In what alternate reality did she think complaining about you to your wife would help the situation???

I'm really sorry this happened to your wife. Good luck with your letter- I would try to get it as high up the chain as you can.