interesting story as I have only had sucess every time with Continental. And flew Continental 9 times now to Belize and twice to Europe and several domestic locations.

It is not Continental who overbooks flights intentionally, it is ALL airlines. Normal and standard. My mother works for an different airline who does it and American and Delta does it too. That is the airlines's way of ensuring fuller flights/profits to stay in business and offer the service to the places we all want to go. The 2 times the flights were over full for me to Costa Rica and Europe they were honest and announced that anyone willing to wait and go on the next flight would receive a $400 voucher for any future travel. It was only a few seats on both. What a deal, I'll take it! Many won't, but there are usually a few that will. Esp. if you're on your way to Europe the next flight is usually within a few hours. For Costa Rica they even put those volunteers on another airline within 3 hours and gave them the $400 voucher. They put you in a hotel only if there are no more flihts that day to the destination as they definately want you on the next flight to get you out there- either way they have to get you there...

Sounds a bit exagerated with the 40 seats overbooked. As far as 200 rooms being booked nightly at Holiday Inn, this is actually a VERY low number if you look at how many hundreds of flights go domestic and international out of Houston. Therefore if they only book 200 and have hundreds of flights it is impossible that on one flight they overbooked 40. Doing the math it means they only overbooked 2 1/2 flights that day. If that's the case, good job on them.

Another incorrect piece of info:
It is not that they "now" make you pick up your luggage in Houston after immigrations...it has ALWAYS been that way. What the others were saying is if you check it all the way through on the way THERE you do not need to pick it up. Whether you fly through Houston, Dallas, Atlanta.... anywhere, you MUST pick up your luggage when you arrive back into the US for customs and for the past 21 yrs I have flown internationally it has been this way. This is for our own protection to have random searches and our bags goes through our US Lock. Mart. TSA Security system screening before going on to any other US destination.

As far as your items being stolen, this can happen anywhere. What does it have to do with Houston? My mother flies all over since she works for another airline and has had people take her stuff from 4 other airports. Luck of draw. Some are on purpose and some do it on accident, thinking it is their luggage so I suggest tying a large colorful cloth to the handle to easily identify your bags. Less likely someone will want to walk out with it too, in fears it would be harder to justify they thought it was theirs if caught by the owner.