bocastephen

Yet another completely unhelpful, snarky, and rabid post. Honestly, why bother? Try some kava tea, it helps.

OP - you were in the right, and I'm sure appropriate compensation will be forthcoming. If the contract of carriage says I must be on board or in line to board 15 minutes before departure, and I show up at the gate to board 16 minutes before departure, my seat better be there, or I expect IDB.

End of Discussion.

AirGorilla

The thing that I don't get here is that although they had given the OP's first class seat away, the plane was not full. They still could've gotten him on the flight, and he would have made his connection in Houston.

Why, at the very least, did they refuse to board him? At the very least, get the man on the plane!!

AG

sushibear

What grade are you in? Tenth? That would explain the sophomoric post.

There is really nothing to discuss about the gate agent's closing the flight early. The cut-off is T-15. The OP was there at T-17. The "upgrading" to FC just added insult to injury, IMO.

craz

CO cant have its cake and eat it too

If I showed up 2 mins late I can be denied boarding or even check-in. heck try showing up and checking in a bag after the computer closed the flight but yet its 25 mins till flight time and an easy walk to the gate. SOL my friends

So too if CO has min times that they will apply against us then it should apply to them as well. The OP was off loaded T-18 thats 3 mins too early and should never have been!, even if the GA could clearly see there was no one in sight, no problem getting everything ready to actually do it at T-15 but Nothing should have been done till then.

J-FLyer

+1

This isn't something a customer should have to prove with independent evidence. The OP is a Plat and as such likely provides CO with a steady revenue stream. What ever happened to "the customer is always right"? In any event, there is a notation that supports the OP's assertion about timing and that the GA did not follow S.O.P. and closed out the flight too early. To the extent CO wants independent evidence or verification of the OP's story, that's about as close as it will get. I'm sure this will be resolved, but it might take a little more time and effort.

Brituchenite

I flew from EWR-ORD today on the 4:45pm flight. Through no fault of my own I arrived quite late at the airport (3:55pm) and was horrified to see a massive line to check in at Elite, so ran to non-elite and managed to get my bag checked by 4:12pm. (I always check my bag because I am a shortie and have difficulty lifting it into the overheads!) As I have been following this thread, I was very acutely aware of the need to be at the podium in good time!!!

Ran upstairs to go through security, begged and pleaded my way to the front of the security line (grateful thanks to all those passengers who graciously allowed me to cut the line) and as I started walking quickly to the gate (C94) I heard the last call being made and the GA saying all remaining passengers needed to be at the podium within 1 minute or they would be denied boarding. This was at 4:20pm

I pretty much killed myself running to the gate, and boarded, only to sit there and wait as people continued boarding up until about 5 minutes before departure time.

Man was I ticked off. Especially as I am doing a pretty good impression of Typhoid Mary today (heavy cold, yuck!) and I just about gave myself a ruptured lung trying to breathe and run at the same time.

Oh yes! I send my sincerest apologies to the unlucky flyer sitting next to me in 4A. Sorry you had to sit next to Typhoid Mary, but at least I had the courtesy to sniffle, cough and sneeze under cover of my blankie in an attempt not to spread the bug!

Brituchenite

by the way, I had an upgrade into First and didn't want to lose it either ...!!!

3/3 upgrades so far this year!

trm2

That made me laugh.

ConciergeMike

^^^

knit-in

Brilliannt. Hope thats the end of this discussion from your side.

puddy

+2

No matter if this whole thing seems trivial to some people, the bottom line is the customer, a seemingly top customer, was there on time with 2 minutes to spare. The customer's word should be taken and a supervisor should have called him long ago to discuss the situation and negotiate an offer. It's not that hard.

In these unsettling times for the airlines, CO should be doing everything they can to provide world-class customer service. There are so many little things they can do that do not cost much (or anything) that can go a long way to making your customers happier. The promise of a callback that never comes is one of my biggest pet peeves. And it happens so frequently (not just with CO). It's a surefire way to piss off even more an already upset customer.

Also, going back to COInsider's post, one thing that bothered me that no one else seemed to mention is where they get their time. To use an internal clock that customers do not have access to seems wrong. Is the CO time displayed anywhere, like at the podium for ones that have monitors? If not, then the airport time should be used.

As others have mentioned, 15 minutes is the policy, so CO needs to stick to it. Chiding the passenger for arriving at the last minute is both childish and irrelevant. He was on time. The reason for showing up at the last minute doesn't matter. I can bet that just about everyone here has shown up late at the gate at least once, either from arriving late at the airport or due to a connection.

I would expect more from CO with this case, even if it is not fully what tommy777 wants. Some type of compromise could be made. In general, I tend to agree with Bonehead about letting things like this go and picking your battles. However, given the poor respones from CO, I don't blame him for pushing on. Perhaps CO can learn from other organizations, like zappos.com or others, who have figured out how to provide top notch customer service.

tommy777

All,

Thank you so much for all your feedback in this thread.

I was contacted by our friend Mr. Scott O'Leary today who explained closer to me what happened at Continental's end.

I understand how difficult and sensitive this situation has been and as I suspected, this does not happen a lot. I have never experienced anything close to this before.

He gave me an offer, I accepted and we are now one big, happy family again.

PS! We agreed not to post our settlement here.

I'm glad I have Flyertalk and know Scott, if not, this would not have been resolved and ended up with a voucher and 5000 miles

ConciergeMike

No wonder the LH flights are able to get CO credit.

Bonehead

Tommy: Glad that it worked out! Maybe this was an ok battle to pick after all.

By any chance did you and Scott discuss a memo to GAs admonishing them to never close a flight early?

craz

+1 on it working out in Agreement

I for 1 have no problem with a flight closing up early thats if everyone has boarded or its past T-15. Or if ATC told CO you leave lets say 20 mins early or sustain a 3 hr delay. But CO should take of those who were inconvinced by its leaving early