Continental Airlines the debacle known as United/Continental Airlines Uncompensated delays overnight, lost baggage, rude employees Houston, Texas

Our Flight from Austin to Jacksonville, Fl on 6/22/11 was
delayed due to weather. My business colleague and I had to spend the night in
Houston. All flights to Florida ended at 7 pm even though the weather had been
clear for hours prior to that.

 

All voucher accepting hotels were full, so we had to incur
$30 in cab fare, $82 in hotel and $50 in meals for 2 breakfasts and two
dinners, total of  $162.  The next morning, our flight to Jax, Fl
was delayed three times and had three gate changes.  The stewardess on the flight to Jax, Fl was rude and seemed
bothered by her job. 

 

Upon arriving in Jax, Fl one of our bags was lost. The value
of the bag was $5000. The baggage clerk in Jax, Fl Denise was rude and
unsympathetic. She told us that It is only common sense, (implying we had
none), to make sure we label every bag we hand over to Continental Airlines.
She told us that the bar codes on the bags are not scanned. We later found out that
this is not true. She finally offered a strained apology after I became more
upset with her lack of professionalism and downright rude behavior toward your
customer. She needs to be fired immediately.

 

We reported the lost bag. I called baggage tracking and they
also seemed equally ill informed as to how bags are identified when Continental
airlines takes possession of them. 
I was told that bags are scanned only to clear them, not to identify
them. I could not get a straight answer to a most simple question of How do
you identify your baggage? I was then told that all bags end up in a warehouse
in Houston, TX, whereby they are opened and the contents matched with my
description of them. I was then informed that I have to fill out your lost
baggage form, which I am doing; fax it to your system tracking center and
wait.  Typing this letter, filling
out the form and faxing it has taken 2 hours of my time. My time is worth $42
per hour, total = $84. Added to the above total, it is now $244 lost due to the
inefficiency of Continental Airlines, not counting the time lost due to an
overnight stay in Houston, TX and my lost bag, worth $5000.

 

I need Continental Airlines to compensate me for the $244 I
have lost and I need my bag returned to me within the next 45 days.  I need either a voucher for the amount
or a free, roundtrip ticket to the destination of my choosing that equates to
the $244 I have lost. I will post this letter all over every social media
outlet I can find, every blog and everyone I know if I am not compensated in
some manner. The President of your airline does a little speech during pre
flight, does he mean what he says or is it all smoke and mirrors and just
another shallow airline scam? He will be my next point of contact if this issue
is not resolved.