“two bad experiences with continental continental”
by Yossarian on September 23, 2010
Flight from Columbus to Phoenix
- Airline:
-
Continental
- RT/OW
- Round Trip
- Number of Stops:
- 1 stop in Houston, Texas
- Date of Flight:
- September 2010
- Seat Class:
- economy
This is about two continental trips I didn't take.
A few months ago, they had a special on your site to fly from Columbus to Phoenix, that was with taxes $210.40 each. One trip was for this month, the second was for the end of October.
The first trip was changed a couple of months after I booked it to go from a half hour layover to a five hour layover. After a couple of telephone calls, I eventually got a full refund of these flights. Because they did this to me six weeks before the trip, it cost me double to find another flight.
The second trip was originally set to go to Cleveland, a half hour layover, and then a flight to Phoenix. Casually, about a month ago, I found out without any notice from them by checking their website, that my flight to Cleveland arrived ten minutes after the flight to Phoenix took off. They refused to refund my tickets, and instead made me go through Houston with an hour and a half layover.
Then, I got an email from them that they had changed my flights again, and I now had a five hour layover in Houston on the way home.
I submitted a refund request for myself and a second one for my wife. After four weeks, I got an email to call reservations about my request. Reservations had no idea why I was to contact them. Eventually, the refund department told me they had flight options with less than a five hour layover and therefore my refund request was denied. I agreed to the new times and flights, and both my wife and I were rebooked.
Then, a couple of days ago, I get an email saying my wife's request had been granted, and her flights had been canceled. The day after, I got an email saying my request had been granted, and would be getting a refund.
So, now again I was left in the lurch a month before my flight after I thought everything was resolved, and had agreed to new flights and times.
Whether this is incompetence at the airlines, or they decided to sell our seats for more money I don't know. What I do know from now on is that they are not trustworthy, and I'll pay more to fly SW, who never pulls stunts like this.
Anyway, you should be aware those cheap Continental flights are just fantasies, apparently.