Continental Airlines

[Pumapayam]

Very competitive with SW Airlines. Wish I could take advantage of them.

[editor]

It's a lot better than what airlines usually do. They put on the big PR stunt about "waiving ticket change fees" and all the TV stations and radio stations and newspapers report it as if the airlines are letting people just change their tickets and get home at the same price -- but it's not true.

The airlines make you pay the difference between your old ticket and the price of a last-minute ticket on whatever next available date that there is a free seat for you.

This happened to me last year. I had a $99 round-trip flight to Minneapolis. There was a snowstorm that shut the airport down for days. American, United, et.al. all happily announced that they would "waive the ticket change fee" in the TV live shots and the newspaper. But when I tried to re-book my flight, I found out that to get on the next available flight (about three days after my original flight) I would have to pay $800 to cover the difference between the $99 fare I got online and the price of the next available seat. The only way to get to Minneapolis without spending at least an additional $200 was to wait six weeks.

I ended up not going at all, ate the $99 and learned an important lesson about the value of paying extra for refundable tickets in the winter.

I have this evil feeling that the airlines actually look forward to these catastrophes because they can not fly for a few days (saving fuel), they get their names all over the press for a week (there is no such thing as bad PR), and they have airports stuffed with desperate people willing to pay anything to get where they're going (suddenly discounted ticket buyers are paying walk-up full-priced fares).

[wxman]

Where do you find these prices? I looked online to book a flight to DC and it was almost $400 dollars! Do we have to book directly through Continental?

[editor]

Where do you find these prices? I looked online to book a flight to DC and it was almost $400 dollars! Do we have to book directly through Continental?

The fares were good through September 19 -- so, all of two and a half days.

[ssullivan]

It's a lot better than what airlines usually do. They put on the big PR stunt about "waiving ticket change fees" and all the TV stations and radio stations and newspapers report it as if the airlines are letting people just change their tickets and get home at the same price -- but it's not true.

Just depends. In the case of Ike, and three years ago with Rita, Continental charged nothing to change tickets. No change fee, no add/collect on the fare. Nothing. I know, because with Rita I was trying to get home to Houston for four days and had a ticket that required multiple changes. This time, with Ike, I was scheduled to connect through IAH the Monday evening after the storm, and had to change my flight around to connect through EWR instead.

And yes, there have been cases where some of the airlines, in some situations, have waived change fees, but required that the same fare class still be available on the new flight in order to avoid a fare increase. If the same fare class was fully booked, you had to pay up to the fare of the next available fare class. That sounds like what you've encountered before, and I do think it's a very deceptive and unfair practice.