My husband & I scheduled a trip in February, 2008 to Geneva to “meet the parents” of our son’s girlfriend, as they had been dating between Atlanta and France for two years.
When we arrived at the airport on February 22, we were informed that our flight from Atlanta to Newark was canceled due to weather and that we were re-routed on another flight that evening from Atlanta-Cleveland-Newark. When we arrived in Cleveland, we were again informed that our flight to Newark was canceled and they would put us on standby for a later flight.
There was no availability for two standby flights and finally when we arrived into Newark late that evening, we were informed that we missed our connection to Geneva.
We had booked coach seats and were told that coach seats to Geneva would not be available for another two days, thereby missing 2 full days of our 6 day trip. We asked if they would upgrade us to Business First the following night (with 5 available seats) using our miles and they adamantly said “NO”.
To make a long story short, we wound up paying over $7,000 to upgrade to BusinessFirst from Newark to Geneva. Unfortunately, canceling was not an option at this point.
When we returned, we wrote to Continental and they were sympathetic, but said they could do nothing because their Contract of Carriage says they are not responsible because of “Force Majeure”.
While we agreed that Force Majeure resulted in the canceled flight to Newark, their “Contract of Carriage” also states the following:
Part E, 2a (i), refers to our situation with a flight cancellation, missed connection and being entitled to a free upgrade to BusinessFirst. We missed our connection on February 22nd and the next flight to Geneva, February 23rd was sold out in coach with availability not until February 24th, , but had 5 available seats in BusinessFirst on February 23rd.
Additionally, they refused to put us on another carrier, although Part E, 2A (ii) states they would if the delay was over two hours; ours was over 24 hours. What if their “Force Majeure Event” in their “Contract of Carriage” resulted in no coach seats for one week or more?
Continental did send us two $300 voucher for our next trip as a good gesture. We feel that Continental handled this very poorly and had they not shuffled us around, we may have even had seats in Coach for the following evening, which was available when we left Atlanta. Their mishandling cost us over $7,000 besides aggravation.
My husband and I have been loyal customers of Continental even when we moved to Atlanta 3 years’ ago. My husband became a million-miler earlier this year. He maintained Platinum Elite status and I, Gold Elite for many years, until this year, dropping to Silver Elite, which we will maintain for life due to his flying over a million miles. With this in mind and the specific Contract of Carriage (in red), we feel Continental should have upgraded us to BusinessFirst (with no additional cost to us) with their available seats, as their Contract of Carriage clearly states.
We would appreciate your help in advising us how to proceed with this.
Thank you for your assistance.
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