[Keystone Cruiser]

Basically Continental Customer Service has turned a minor incident into a much more dislike of their company due to being non-professional.

I was first introduced to Continental a couple years ago when we were transfered to their airline early one morning when our flight on another carrier was cancelled. The Continental people at the airport went out of their way to accomodate our group and special needs in spite of having been added to their flight late. We then decided to fly Continental later that year on another trip. Once again, we were not disappointed by Continentals handling of our reservation, check-in or in-flight services. In fact, I was extremely impressed.

Back in September, we began planning our trip to Hawaii this summer. We decided to get our own airfare this summer due to the high cost and problems with using the cruise line airfare. (We had a new travel agent that is simply not up to the standards of our previous agent.) Our agent tried to push us toward another carrier for our flights, but I held fast to the request for Continental if they were remotely priced similar. (which they were.) Reluctantly our agent finally agreed and got us a quote from Continental. (quite comparable to the other quote).

At this point, we decided to begin looking at taking over our own reservations and letting the agent go. Our large group was meeting in late October and I was assigned the task of getting our own quotes. I contacted the major carriers that fly to Hawaii. (Delta, United, American and Continental). The first three provided me with very good group quotes. Continental's reply was tort.... they wouldn't provide me a quote because we already had a quote through an agent. In spite of me explaining the situation, the group reservation department refused my request. I then contacted Customer Service and explained the situation to them. They quickly got back to me and said to resubmit my request to the group department which I did.

The quote I got back from the group department was an insult. It was 50% higher than any of the other three group quotes and even much higher than the quote they gave our agent. (for the SAME flights!). I decided a mistake had been made, and in an attempt to keep Continental at the top of the list due to our previous experience, I responded to the quote that it much be an error since it was so much higher and that American Airlines quote was $xxxx and much lower. The response I got from the Group Sales Department was the most outlandish and insulting comment that I have ever received: "if American's quote is so much lower, then you should just choose to fly with them." No comment on their quote or even an attempt to justify it and keep my business. It became evident that the quote was not realistic.

In talking with someone else who works in aviation from a different company, they told me that it was probably just a quote from Continental to "save face." Basically, they did not want to give me a quote because of the TA's quote but they were forced to so they made the quote so ridiculously high that I would not take it. That silly quote satisfied my request for a quote while not going around an agent.

That simply made me mad. The more I sat and thought about how I was treated by their group department, the more upset I became at their arrogence and disrespect that they showed me (their customer).

We ended up booking with Continental using the agents quote. In spite of it being higher, it was somewhat better flight times and again, we liked our experiences on Continental. The stupidity of their group sales and Customer Service departments should not be used as a reflection of their flight crews.

After we made our final payment in November and got our seat assignments, I noticed that our seats were scattered throughout the plane! One of the reasons for us booking so early was to get a better selection of seats and set up our seating to accomodate some medical issues and children issues in our group. (on one flight, some of our group were in the very last seats on the plane, and we had young children sitting alone in seats.)

I immediately decided to get our seats changed to what we desired and went to the Continental Website. In spite of their computerized help agent, Alex, I could not find a way to change our seats. Using other methods, I was able to find what seats were still available. It is kind of bad that so many good seats are blocked out until 24 hours before the flight because the elderly/handicaped members of our party could really benefit from sitting there, but that is a minor issue to me and not what really upsets me.

I once again contacted customer service and told them of my issue. They wrote back that there was a problem with our reservation in changing seats online, but they would gladly change our seats if I sent them where I wanted us to sit. (a very nice gesture.). I quickly went to work and looking at available seats, wrote out a seating plan and even listed each party members name and where we wanted them switched to on each flight. I sent it to Customer Service.

Less than a day later our seat assignments were changed...BUT, they were all wrong! They had us in the right area, but the specific seats were wrong. Granted, we can probably change within our group, but when one provides and EXACT listing, why can't it be followed properly?? We have two handicapped gentlemen that have to sit on a specific aisle seat (left side) due to medical conditions. The seating assignment that Continental customer service set up as two kids under 8 together by themselves two rows back on one flight, etc. Like I said, we can probably switch around between us BUT what if security levels for airlines change in light of recent events and it becomes mandatory that you sit in the seat listed on your ticket? Once again, it is insulting to do all that work for four flights and be basically ignored.

I wrote back to Customer Service and asked them to either fix the seats to my original request OR to give me the ability on our reservation to make the changes myself....which I am happy to do. I never received a response to that email.

I have since been told that we will not be able to check-in and pay for our luggage fees online ahead of arrival at the airport and instead will have to check in at the counter and pay the HIGHER luggage fee. Now that is just ridiculous. For some reason, being a group makes you pay more. Most companies welcome groups and provide perks....but on Continental, you pay more as a group???

But back to the orginal story.... After the combination of the disrespect shown to me by the Reservation department and the inability of the Customer Service Department to follow a written chart and then their ignoring of future emails from me, it really began to bother me. This is not the Continental Airlines that I had known in my previous dealings with them. I expected a level of professionalism that was really lacking from these two corportate areas. Due to this I decided to simply write a letter to a person higher up in an attempt to point these problems out. As I stated in my letter to them, I was not asking for a free ride or reduced fare.... I just wanted to point these issues out and either get our seating arrangement corrected or myself being given the ability to change it. (I didn't even mention the group check-in and higher luggage fares.)

It was quite difficult to even find an address or name of a person higher up. The Continental website would simply bring you back to the Customer Care page and the email address that had already failed me. The only other page with addresses and names led me to the Corporate heads like the Company President and Vice-Presidents. My desire was not to write to someone of that level because they have more important matters to attend to and my issue was not a major corporate issue. But in the end, I could only find the address of the Vice President in charge of customer relations. So I addressed my letter to him and, knowing an assistant would read it, requested that it be forwarded to someone lower on the chain of command that would be a more proper location.

That was a month ago and still no response to my letter. Granted, I didn't expect anything to come of the letter and my small requests to go unheeded, but I at least expected a letter from someone at Continental (even a from letter), thanking me for my time and that my complaints were at least heard. That is what a professional organization would do. But nothing....a total ignoring of a customer. Again, even a form letter thanking me for writing would have satisfied me. Through another website, I found another adress of some people lower on the "totem pole" in Customer Service, and so I sent a copy of my late December letter to them last week. We will see if anything comes of that.... I doubt it.

It just is saddening to me that what I thought was a great airline all the way around have no professionalism or courtesy toward their customers. I can accept the rudeness and ineptness of the Group Sales & Customer Service Departments.... you sometimes get employees like that, but I cannot accept non-professionalism.

In the end, we have paid our final payment on our tickets and so are stuck on Continental (and not on return flight of our choice) but oh well, we will deal with that as I'm sure the flight crews will do a great job. But these will probably be our last flights on Continental. In the meantime, I will continue telling my story about this wherever I can. Thank you for forums like this!