[TravelingMilitaryFamily]

After spending two years overseas with the USAF, my family took a two week trip back home before starting another overseas tour. While waiting at the gate in Newark Airport, the gate agent called for the preboarding of military, so we all got up. Once we got to the gate, the gate agent started immediately with an attitude about how they didn't call families yet for preboarding. Although we were standing in the area of the General Boarding lane, the gate agent continued to bark at us about moving out of the way for the FIRST CLASS (who had their own separate lane). We had even bought a seat for our infant for the long overseas flight so overall we had spent $7000 on 5 airline tickets. From experience, it was important to get everyone strapped in and settled. We had never had this attitude on the foreign carriers, but the way the gate agents treated us provided us the worst moment of our visit home.

We filed a complaint with Continental, but received an unsincere, impersonal letter saying how they are working to improve and sorry for the treatment we received. Oh, and they hope we will fly with them again! We will be taking our $7000 elsewhere. We did not work hard to save this kind of money to be treated with so much disrespect when someone who used their miles to upgrade to first class receives the red carpet treatment.

[Gromit801]

I think when they called for Military, they meant military traveling under orders. When I was in the Air Force, traveling on leave was not considered under orders.

The agent making the announcement might have made it more clear.