Continental Airlines 24-hour Flexible Booking Policy

[California Girl]

I was just reading my regular newsletter e-mail from Continental Airlines and found this. I find it verrry interesting!

24-hour Flexible Booking Policy
Ongoing Offer
Posted Thu., Jul. 17, 2008

Effective Aug. 17, 2008, all customers booking travel at continental.com or Continental Reservations will be required to purchase tickets at the time they make their reservations. Customers will have the flexibility to make changes to reservations within 24 hours without incurring change fees. This includes canceling your reservation and requesting a refund to the original form of payment.

Isn't this something new, or am I out of step with travel industry policies?

[tjwgrr]

Isn't this something new, or am I out of step with travel industry policies?

I might be wrong, but I think the Continental's old policy was you could book reservations and they would hold them for 24 hrs without payment. You then needed to contact them within 24 hours to pay for the reservations, or they would be canceled.

[Lulu76]

Yeah, that is how Continental used to do it, they didn't charge your card until after the 24 hours as long as you didn't call to cancel.

I know Northworst charges your card the second you buy, but you have 24 hours to change or cancel with no penalty, like Continental's new policy.

I bought a ticket from Southwest in April, and it was the first time in a long time I'd bought from them, and it took several days to charge my card, so I wondered if they might have that 24-hour policy too.