I was traveling alone from Chicago to Cancun, where I was to meet friends. I had to go through Houston on the way. To start, the line just to check the baggage in Chicago took over an hour. When we land in Houston, we were informed that although the cancun flight was still on the ground, and only 3 gates over, we had all been booked on the next flight out— THE NEXT DAY... But we were welcome to wait standby for the next two flights out that day.
The next flight is already overbooked, so they offer people $400 and the next flight out to Cancun. Nobody offers, but I ask for the seat only, not the money, but they said "No, the offer is only for passengers on this flight."
I spend the next 5 hours wandering through the airport trying to find someone to help me.instead, I received three different reasons for why the flight was delayed (all of which were not the fault of Contintal, of course, even one as ridiculous as "Orders from the President", and was coldly told that they would not put me in a hotel for the night because it was not their fault.
Meanwhile, I periodically run into the many other people from the chicago flight who are also stranded. One man says that he got "hooked up" by some woman at one of the desks who pulled some strings and got him a boarding pass on the last flight out. He was later pulled off that plane as it was a fake and she just gave it to him to shut him up. We then watched as that flight filled up and they let on someone who had originally booked on a different airline before they allowed any of us PAYING CONTINENTAL CUSTOMERS get on the plane. On my way home, the first flight was also delayed 30 minutes, and I was again coldly told that I would miss my connecting flight and stay overnight, alone, in Houston, but it of course was not their fault.
Every person I spoke to from Continental either lied or was rude or just didn't care that they had stranded me, alone, in a city I had never been to. I wrote the airline later and received their "Good Will" Certificate, which is designed to look like a check, but only pays out "good will." HA. As if I would want to subject myself to that kind of cold, insensitivity again.
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