svenskaflicka

Holy cow, I felt bad for this guy. He is apparently a greenhorn and I thought he would have gotten more sympathy here.

Just goes to show you what I know. Perhaps, I should say, what I don't know, but then again, I fell for the Will Work For Food panhandlers.

braefoot

You and me both!
I'm a relative newcomer and know very little about FF programmes but I mainly send PMs just because of the response the young OP got.

orlandodlplat

Yeah, I noticed that too. That's when I stopped responding.

Sojourn

This is the letter I sent to the CEO. I’m bringing this up again because earlier this morning someone from corporate customer care called me. I was unavailable at the time but left a message and am waiting for a return call. I will keep you all posted. It should be interesting to see what the outcome entails.





Larry Kellner,

My name is so and so and have been flying with your airline since 2001. Thus far, my experiences with red coats, check-in personnel and other Continental employees have been good. The weekend of Mar 16 through March 19 has changed this, as I encountered many rude and grossly uninformed Continental employees. Because of this experience, I will no longer be doing business with your airline.

I am not writing this letter to complain about the weather. I understand Continental cannot do anything about it. Your airline can however control how its employees deal with paying passengers. A friend I was with asked a question to a red coat while people congregated around the gate. The red coat not only raised her voice but also was on the verge of screaming. She then called three policemen who stood there and watched the two of us. This was extremely unprofessional and should not happen with any airline.

My flight was cancelled so vouchers were given out to several people. I ended up spending $12.06 of my own money on food and beverage because Continental did not pass these items out to everyone. I also had to spend the night in Atlanta at the cost of $79.99. Misinformed agents were the direct cause of this expense. As a paying customer, I believe I should have been treated far better.

Overall, I am extremely dissatisfied with Continental. If your employees dealt with myself and other passengers with a better attitude, this event would have gone much more smoothly. I have enclosed my receipts and a copy of the hotel bill. Also my mobile phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX should I need to be contacted.

joejones

That should eliminate any surprise outcomes... why would CO give you anything if you're never going to do business with them again?

avidflyer

$79.99, you got an amazing deal. Usually AP hotels (if you can find one during IR Ops) are twice that price. While I know you are young and not very savvy when it comes to air travel there are a few things you should take away from this experience. First and MOST important; Flying is NOT like jumping in a car and driving down the highway. The fact that technology/safety practices have advanced to the point that most people forget just how dangerous flying COULD be does not in any way change the fact that if not for these procedures/technology flying would be extremely dangerous. At the end of the day you are strapped into an aluminum tube traveling 500mph at 38,000 feet…really think about that. It is very abstract to most folks but that is the reality. Given the conditions it is imperative that flights operate within very tight safety windows. When a flight is cancelled because of wx it is for your safety. You had a leg up on most people that day because you saw the flight was cancelled the night before. Flights do not cancel and then just get re-instated when it comes to weather. As you have already acknowledged, you should have called immediately and re-booked. Second, I know the CSR’s were rude and that is not right but frankly you should not have been there. You really put yourself in this situation by showing up at the airport when you did not have a valid reservation. Most people get caught at the airport when their flight cancels, you knew in advance, and really had no business being there. I do sympathize with you on the treatment you got by the CSR’s but sadly we the flying public have come to expect the worst (CSR behavior) and are surprised/happy when we get a CSR who actually cares. This is a fact of life in the air travel business and the best way to combat it is to take you out of the mix. You can do this by earning status on a particular airline and you will receive FAR better treatment in these situations. You can do it by checking for flight cancellations from home on-line. You can do it by checking in for your flight on-line. I fly 200,000+ per year and I can’t remember the last time I spoke to a check-in agent…I print my BP at home/hotel and go straight to the gate. These are all things you need to learn if you want to really be a savvy air traveler. You can tap into a wealth of knowledge here on FT. I know some of the responses are harsh but that should tell you how fundamental the mistakes you made really are. Not everyone has a sympathetic ear for your situation, but you can learn from every post that was made here. Think of the harshness as punctuation. I read your note to the CEO and while you may get an auto-response you will not get your hotel paid for or anything else. I am not a big CO fan anyway but this was not their issue to start with (wx) and while the agents may have been rude you may also want to consider that they had several thousand people to deal with that day and you really should not have been one of them because your flight was cancelled the night before. I can also tell you that there is very little difference in domestic airlines these days. I have flown them all and some do things better than others but they all have the same CS issues during irregular ops. You already have some EQM’s with CO and in my opinion you should not flush them down the toilet over this issue. You are really shooting yourself in the foot by giving up the elite qualifying miles with CO (albeit not many) that could get you to Silver status because of something that you will run into on EVERY US carrier at one point. When they do not give you anything (and they won’t) you may want to consider giving CO another shot when weather is not an issue. Good luck, safe travels and welcome to my world!

opushomes

Fortunately Larry Kellner is too much of a gentleman to send you the reply you deserve.

Dear So and So:

Please hurry so that the door does not hit your nether parts. Enclosed is an invoice for wasted time on the part of our staff dealing with your perceived problem. An envelope is enclosed without a stamp for your money order or bank check.

Wishing you much luck learning about life.

Sincerely,

Sojourn

For that same reason. I stated I wasn't going to do business with them. I may be one person, but I AM persistent and argumentative so I feel I will be justly compensated.

avidflyer

I still do not know what your think you will be compensated for. If you have tickets to a concert and the band postpones the show for a week would you go to the arena and hang around for a week? You had no business being at the airport at all. The vouchers that were handed out were for elite members (see my note). The AL has absolutley no reason to pay for your lunch or hotel because of weather. They also will not give you a hotel or a meal because, again, you should not be there. The airport is the place the aircraft take off and land. Your primary booking/reservations folks are NOT AT the airport, they are on the other end of a phone. Should they give anyone who walks in off the street a hotel room and a meal? Without a valid ticket for that day thats what you are, just someone who has no ticket to fly and instead of calling the ticket office you are choosing to go to the airport. Again I will tell you, and I have had hundreds of flights cancelled for weater, you will not get any compensation at all and you do not deserve any.

brahms77

Dear OP, sorry to hear that you had a horrible day with CO. But please note that what others are telling you is a sour note of advice for your own good! Sure you can expect sympathy, but you can't control what others will write to you as they did not physically experienced the same with you and have different expections when flying. I sympathize with your agony in going through the horrible weather delay, cancellations, etc, but I don't sympathize your lack of preparedness. You really should have called the night before your flight when you saw your flight "cancelled" and let alone not go to the airport when you found out about the cancellation.

Here's what I do when I see my flight cancelled the night before:

1) call UA (since I normally fly UA) and see what's up with the flight... why it is cancelled.
2) I talk to the agent about possibilities and if they can't get me to my destination on the same day (due to connecting problem) I will ask the agent if they can accomodate me on another carrier. If not, I will accept most convenient and available routing and flight that can be confirmed at the earliest convenience.

I, too, have experienced many irregular operations both due to weather and at the fault of the airline. In each case, I called the phone agent and they were able to accomodate almost everything with an exception to issuing me a hotel or food voucher. Again, the theme is preparedness.

It's your choice not to fly CO, but the thing is never to say "never." Because you may end up flying CO again due to pricing or other things. Again, with weather delays, you are really at the mercy of the airline as airlines really don't have any responsibilities for weather caused cancellations or delays. If this was due to mechanical or crew (non-weather related) and you were treated as you have said, then you MAY have better argument.

Lastly, the comment about "F as in F*ck" was funny... but I don't think this has nothing to do with "cultural difference" of any kind! Why do you think that Indians are more likely to say the F word? Really, I would think that it's just an individual agent's mistake and he ought to be corrected for that mistake.

Sojourn

Judging from all your responses, it looks like I won’t be getting anything. I’m fine with that. The very fact I got a call means someone from corporate read the letter and knows of what happened. That’s really all I wanted. I did not come here to rehash what I should or should not have done also. I’m sure someone from customer care will call me back and that will probably be the extent.

magic111

Reminds me of the old HBO TV program Dream On

happytravelling

I am surprised that there has been little sympathy for Sojourn. It seems there is little sympathy for the relatively inexperienced traveller. Good luck and don't let one bad experience ruin more than one day - and hopefully you know what to do next time.

skye1

The immediate threat of depriving CO of any future business is problematic: the OP launches that in their first paragraph, AND, the OP letter is one of slamming the door on the way out and not inviting a course of action to reconcile the relationship. If, by the end of the OP's first paragraph, the decision to leave CO has already been made, why should any CS rep at CO read any further? Were they to do so, they would find themselves and their entire company written off for the actions of a few difficult employees. What in this letter & the way it's written would inspire the average Joe at customer relations to read on. Another weather delay. Another "buh bye" from another ticked off customer. I am sure the OP would not like his/her FT readership to write off all 19-year olds nor all "newbie" travellers just on this one experience.

A bigger problem is the OP has already gone into rant mode. He/she really needs to learn to parse his problem with that of others...as has already been pointed out to him/her, it's just not that uncommon. The OP would be wise to learn not only what he/she should have done to assume some ownership & responsibility for his/her reactions to adverse circumstances but in how to report them, and how to productively "complain" about them. Why?

Well, at some point, something really HUGE may screw up the OP's travels--that is, something that most on this board would all readily agree is HUGE...and there are several cases of that. The OP would be wise to view this as a "lesson" on getting ready for that. By that time, the OP will have been wise to have learned from his/her mistakes in the incident, from his/her mistakes as to how he/she conveyed it, etc. When the "HUGE" problem occurs, he/she will hopefully be more adept at proactively handling it AND be able to convey his/her thoughts in a more productive manner to the airline, hotel, company, etc. involved. That's when an airline WOULD owe him/her some serious compensation in terms of a major amount of miles, vouchers, etc. I think most of the feedback, including this post, can prepare the OP to better engage that situation, which has much more potential for what the OP is wanting.

Hopefully, the OP will grab a seat on a favorite couch or at favorite coffee place, grab a highlighter, and a physical printout of each page of this thread (not a read-thru on a laptop, but an actual printed version) and read thru it with teachable eyes, highlighting the many, many sage points of advice he/she has received on how to do better next time. Clearly, several people had plenty of sympathy and concern for him/her to take the time out of their day to offer their feedback.

I don't think it's the agents' rudeness or the weather delay that people aren't sympathizing with. It sucks, and nobody is challenging that part of the story. It's how the OP handled it that people are trying to help him/her with.
"Nightmare". What the friends & relatives of the Kenyan airliner crash are going thru is a nightmare. What the people in Kansas are facing right now is a nightmare.
"I maybe should have planned but whatever". No maybe about it. No whatever about it.
"I'll never fly Continental again"...see above comments.
A more founded lack of sympathy would rightfully come if something of this sadly common, yet common, nature occurred and the OP's posts and subsequent complaint letter weren't much more productive than what's been shared here.

sadiqhassan

This thread has taught me to never share any bad experiences I may ever have (but hopefully won't have .)

If only I could figure our everthing about a person from a single FT post! You have quite a rare skill.

How was the OP thinking that the world revolves around him/her? If I book a flight, I expect to get on that flight. If weather prevents me from getting there on time, do I not have a reason to get annoyed?

I sometimes get annoyed when I am driving and the light is about to turn orange but the guy in front stops while I am running late. Will I get annoyed? yes. That doesn't show that I like the world to revolve around me. It's merely me expressing my anger with the situation - which is only temporary.

Cheers