Continental Buddy Pass Question

I have a friend that booked me and my wife on a flight to HNL later this week using CO buddy passes. In order to fly with buddy passes to HNL on CO, they apparently require the employee to fly as well. So here is my dilemma. At the time of scheduling, he was going to go with us, but now has had an issue come up that he is no longer able to go. Looking back now, we made a mistake, and prepaid our hotels, car rentals, and island hopper flights and they are non refundable. We have a confirmation number, and the flight looks wide open for us to fly the flight. Will we still be able to go on this trip? Are we at the mercy of the gate attendant? Should we gate check our luggage? If we e-check in, and get a boarding pass, are we good to go. As a final note, I am a former CO emplyee and understand that poper travel attire and polite professionalism could be the key as to whether or not we get to board.

My friend. I wish I had better news for you. Gate agents are not supposed to vier from policy. The policy for CO states that travel to HAWAII from a stateside based employee, their buddy pass must be accompanied by the employee. If it were ALASKA, you would have no problem. Don't ask me why CO does this, it must have something to do with the constant traffic of nonrevs for travellers to that island. HNL is a tough destination, IN AND OUT for a non revenue type. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE and an S5 classification will set off a big red flag, and the first thing they will ask you is WHERE IS YOUR ACCOMPANIED EMPLOYEE? I would do my best to try and recupe your prepaid expenses, or fork over some more bucks and go POSITIVE space. NEVER prepay for hotels when you do standby. Especially in your scenario as the bottom feeder SA5C standby nonrev, bottom of the list and no where to go but at the mercy of people that just don't show up or kicked the bucket on the way to the airport. Good luck.


<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by HypnoPooper:
I have a friend that booked me and my wife on a flight to HNL later this week using CO buddy passes. In order to fly with buddy passes to HNL on CO, they apparently require the employee to fly as well. So here is my dilemma. At the time of scheduling, he was going to go with us, but now has had an issue come up that he is no longer able to go. Looking back now, we made a mistake, and prepaid our hotels, car rentals, and island hopper flights and they are non refundable. We have a confirmation number, and the flight looks wide open for us to fly the flight. Will we still be able to go on this trip? Are we at the mercy of the gate attendant? Should we gate check our luggage? If we e-check in, and get a boarding pass, are we good to go. As a final note, I am a former CO emplyee and understand that poper travel attire and polite professionalism could be the key as to whether or not we get to board. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the reply. We changed our flight to SAN and I forked out the cash for the guaranteed trip in and out of HNL. The last thing I wanted to do was cause a problem for my friend that got me the passes. In the end, it would have been cheaper if we just paid for the direct tickets when we started planning a month ago. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Seems like a goofy rule making the employee travel to and from HNL with a buddy. That means another seat to try and get?

Incidentally, did you all ready give money for your buddy passes? If you don't use those passes, you don't get charged. Also, if you gave your credit card number, and you don't fly, they don't charge your credit card number. If you gave your buddy cash for those passes, get it back, they haven't charged him a dime. I think the rules have something to do also with employees in HNL that can send a buddy stateside without travelling with them because the states is really the only place they can go to from HNL, they are after all, in an isolated island. Here in the states, we can go all over and so can our buddies including Alaska. Maybe they think it would clog the system up if buddies could go to HNL unescorted, plus being such a rotten NON REV station to go, it wouldn't be fair to the non rev getting stuck in HNL day after day since they would be absolutely at the bottom of the list.
HYPNOPOOPER. Without a doubt, you did the right thing getting a positive space fare. Don't know whom you went with but check out some of the other flyers to HNL from California. I'd a hated for you to have had to go through the reamer so to speak, and as an employee at CO, I personally do not even like to do the BUDDY PASS thing for those very reasons. Buddy passes can work good if the buddy is going to a destination that is not a very popular resort run and during low peak moments. It's a roll of the dice, sometimes it works great, other times it's nearly impossible to make a flight. Just depends on time and place. Good luck and for sure, you have a nice trip with no headaches about being bumped or anything like that. Just enjoy yourself.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by chet imes:
Seems like a goofy rule making the employee travel to and from HNL with a buddy. That means another seat to try and get? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>