[PHXFlyer]

Fist I'd like to address some errors in your post:

1. Continental is not yet part of Star Alliance. They are still a member of SkyTeam and this will not change until the 4th quarter of this year.

2. Continental's hubs are in Newark, Cleveland and Houston. You wouldn't connect in Denver on the way to/from Las Vegas. Are you sure you were flying Continental? United/Ted has a hub in Denver.

3. All of Continental's call centers and home-based agents are here in the US. They do not nor do they have plans to outsource.

It sucks to lose bags - well not lose them but have them delayed. An overwhelming majority of mis-routed and delayed bags eventually are returned. You would think that with most airlines charging for even the first checked bag that there would be fewer bags in the system and therefore fewer delayed bags. We'll see when the year-end numbers are released by the DOT in a few days.

From the complaints I've seen on this board Air Canada seems to have issues with checked baggage. Of course here we only see the horror stories and not the thousands who travel every day without incident. With all of the airlines thriving on fees for everything from checked bags to bottled water you'd think they'd come up with a "premium bag handling" fee. For $5-$10 more the passenger would be guaranteed that the bag would be at the destination airport when they arrived or the bag fees would be refunded. Furthermore, the extra charge would provide point-to-point tracking where the bag would be scanned every time it was loaded, off-loaded, etc. much like FedEx. If the bag isn't delivered to the customer within 24 hours of arrival, then cash penalties would start to kick in and not the paltry $25/day some airlines reluctantly allow now. I think the extra income from the higher fee and the possibility of real cash payouts for delayed bags would incentify the airlines to shape up their baggage handling process.