One of things that I like about CO is reliability and constancy. As an experienced traveler & Plat Elite I usually know what I’m in for. CO is usually quite reliable and I rarely misconnect but I just had a very bad experience on a misconnection in IAH that taught me a valuable lesson: Follow your instincts!
Once we arrived a F/A made an announcement that they know we are late and to check with the agent meeting the plane for connection information. My first instinct was to go to the P Club but I figured the gate was closer and could be faster. The agent meeting the plane had no record of my connecting flight and sent me the gate agent. While waiting in line I checked the PDA site and found I just missed my flight. The gate agent said she couldn’t help me and to go to customer service at the end of the concourse. Why would they put me in a dead end line? Went to customer service and waited in another line, the agent played with the computer for 15 minutes and said she couldn’t make the changes I needed to get me to my destination in a the time frame I thought reasonable so she pointed to a phone at the end of the counter and told me to call customer service. Something about a difference in fare and she gets audited and could not make the change since a supervisor couldn’t be reached for approval. I was shocked. I’m at the airport in front of a CO agent and they told me to call someone else. I walked to the nearest P-Club and 20 minutes later walked out with a boarding pass for a new connecting flight and even enjoyed Papadeux’s for lunch. No questions asked and they didn’t even mention a problem. The agent listened to my problem and proposed resolution and did what they could to get me to my destination as soon as possible. Without providing the boring details my request was not unreasonable as proven by the P-Club accommodating me.

I guess this is sort of a rant but I learned valuable lesson to just take the time to use the P-Club if available for travel problems. Maybe the customer service agents are burnt out or not empowered to help but the P-Club save the day for me.

I usually do 1 better

If I think theres a good chance of missing my connection, the sec we touch down the cell is turned on and I call the Plat line or any line that I can get thru on.

If they tell me I should be OK , I always ask them to protect me anyway on another flight unless Im told my connection is delayed and I feel there wont be a problem making it with the new departure time.

This has saved me a number of times and never had to wait in line anywhere, yes the only time it failed was when there were massive storms and cancellations going on somewhere in the system and the wait time was gonna be longer then getting to a live person. But that occured just 1 time so not too bad.

I had something similar happen to me last year. I missed my connecting flight by 5 minutes, and was told i would need to get the next flight out in the morning (my airport has a curfew - no flights after 11pm). I knew that there was a flight going into a nearby airport, leaving in 45 min, and i headed for that gate, where i found a line of about 40 people waiting

I headed over to the PC, and tried to get the agent to confirm a seat on that flight. She told me she couldn't do it. AT THE SAME TIME, i was on the line with the elite desk, trying to do the same thing Right after the club agent told me the seats were under airport control and that she couldn't do anything, the Elite line agient told me she was able to snag a seat before airport control took over.

It was pretty funny, the PC agent telling me she couldn't do anything, and a minute later I asked her to just print out my new BP, which just showed up on her system.

All in all, everything was ok, except for the fact that my wife had to drive to LAX to pick me up, at night, and got caught in a 2 hour freeway shutdown.