Has Southwest changed their policy on holding multiple flight reservations.

[auger]

I have been watching fares for our December Disney trip with little luck finding anything for a reasonable amount of points. I finally found a couple of options that I could live with if nothing better came around. So I booked a flight from Indy to Tampa, and I also booked one from Detroit to Orlando.
A day later, SW cancelled our Indy flight.

I thought it was just that they decided to cancel that flight altogether, so I didn't think too much of it, although it was annoying.

So I ended up finding a flight from Cleveland to Tampa, and I booked it to replace the Indy flight. Next day, they cancelled my flight again.

Did their policy change as far as holding multiple reservations in the same name? I have always booked three or four options at a time, because I never know where we will find the cheapest car rental, and I never know until a month or so out, when exactly our party will be able to leave and have to be home.

Any insight would be most appreciated.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I have been watching fares for our December Disney trip with little luck finding anything for a reasonable amount of points. I finally found a couple of options that I could live with if nothing better came around. So I booked a flight from Indy to Tampa, and I also booked one from Detroit to Orlando.
A day later, SW cancelled our Indy flight.

I thought it was just that they decided to cancel that flight altogether, so I didn't think too much of it, although it was annoying.

So I ended up finding a flight from Cleveland to Tampa, and I booked it to replace the Indy flight. Next day, they cancelled my flight again.

Did their policy change as far as holding multiple reservations in the same name? I have always booked three or four options at a time, because I never know where we will find the cheapest car rental, and I never know until a month or so out, when exactly our party will be able to leave and have to be home.

Any insight would be most appreciated.

I found an article from late Feb 2017 that talked about your issue.

Here's a bit of what it said:
"In the past, you could have multiple flights booked on the same day if you were unsure about the time you wanted to fly or the destination you wanted to fly to. And when you make these speculative reservations with points, as long as you cancel 10 minutes prior to the flights departure time, the points go straight back to your account and the taxes/fees paid back to your credit card. While doing this has always explicitly been against the terms, Southwest’s IT system is so outdated that they never caught on and reservations were 99.99% kept.

This is all about to change though. According to a FlyerTalk thread there are many reports of reservations being canceled for reservations made May 8th or later. It seems like if you have two reservations that put you in the air at the same time or two reservations with the same two city pairs on the same day, 24 hours after the 2nd reservation is made, one of the two reservations will be auto canceled. Based on the thread, it seems like we are still unsure if it is the first or second reservation that will be canceled. Reports show it both ways. It seems as though Southwest’s new IT system that is being implemented is able to pick up these double bookings."

_____
So I guess the gist is it was always against SWA TOS but their system didn't pay attention to it. Now their system has been programmed to pay attention to it.

 

[Shanti]

I have been watching fares for our December Disney trip with little luck finding anything for a reasonable amount of points. I finally found a couple of options that I could live with if nothing better came around. So I booked a flight from Indy to Tampa, and I also booked one from Detroit to Orlando.
A day later, SW cancelled our Indy flight.

I thought it was just that they decided to cancel that flight altogether, so I didn't think too much of it, although it was annoying.

So I ended up finding a flight from Cleveland to Tampa, and I booked it to replace the Indy flight. Next day, they cancelled my flight again.

Did their policy change as far as holding multiple reservations in the same name? I have always booked three or four options at a time, because I never know where we will find the cheapest car rental, and I never know until a month or so out, when exactly our party will be able to leave and have to be home.

Any insight would be most appreciated.

As the PP described, SWA doesn't want you to do that & has figured out a way to discourage the practice.

I have a question for you out of curiosity. If you're booking multiple flights, how do you avoid losing all the extra money from the ones you don't take? Since you mentioned tracking fares, cost must be important to you. Do you just travel a lot, so are able to switch the unused flights to other trips within the allotted 1-year period? Or do you buy refundable tickets?

 

[auger]

I found an article from late Feb 2017 that talked about your issue.

Here's a bit of what it said:
"In the past, you could have multiple flights booked on the same day if you were unsure about the time you wanted to fly or the destination you wanted to fly to. And when you make these speculative reservations with points, as long as you cancel 10 minutes prior to the flights departure time, the points go straight back to your account and the taxes/fees paid back to your credit card. While doing this has always explicitly been against the terms, Southwest’s IT system is so outdated that they never caught on and reservations were 99.99% kept.

This is all about to change though. According to a FlyerTalk thread there are many reports of reservations being canceled for reservations made May 8th or later. It seems like if you have two reservations that put you in the air at the same time or two reservations with the same two city pairs on the same day, 24 hours after the 2nd reservation is made, one of the two reservations will be auto canceled. Based on the thread, it seems like we are still unsure if it is the first or second reservation that will be canceled. Reports show it both ways. It seems as though Southwest’s new IT system that is being implemented is able to pick up these double bookings."

_____
So I guess the gist is it was always against SWA TOS but their system didn't pay attention to it. Now their system has been programmed to pay attention to it.

Thank-you for the excerpt. That describes exactly what I have experienced. Definitely a downer, as it will be difficult to judge the best choice for us. I guess I will have to do my best to figure it all out, and hope that what I choose aligns with our final dates and times that we can fly.

As the PP described, SWA doesn't want you to do that & has figured out a way to discourage the practice.

I have a question for you out of curiosity. If you're booking multiple flights, how do you avoid losing all the extra money from the ones you don't take? Since you mentioned tracking fares, cost must be important to you. Do you just travel a lot, so are able to switch the unused flights to other trips within the allotted 1-year period? Or do you buy refundable tickets?

I fly on points, which are 100% refundable, so booking multiple flights was never an issue. We always have plenty of points.

 

[Shanti]

Thank-you for the excerpt. That describes exactly what I have experienced. Definitely a downer, as it will be difficult to judge the best choice for us. I guess I will have to do my best to figure it all out, and hope that what I choose aligns with our final dates and times that we can fly.



I fly on points, which are 100% refundable, so booking multiple flights was never an issue. We always have plenty of points.

Got it. Thanks for answering, as I didn't quite understand that.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Thank-you for the excerpt. That describes exactly what I have experienced. Definitely a downer, as it will be difficult to judge the best choice for us. I guess I will have to do my best to figure it all out, and hope that what I choose aligns with our final dates and times that we can fly.

Honestly I didn't know much about multiple reservations on SWA until reading about it on the DIS. I myself have never done it just always booked 1 flight for all vacations but if you were used to doing it with multiple reservations before I could see where now it would be a way different experience.

Typically for us we find the dates that work for us with vacations and work schedules then book flights based on that for the specific destination. If we feel the dates aren't needed to be a specific time period (like we don't need to leave this day we could also go that day) then we'll look around for the cheapest flight SWA offers at that time and see if we can swing those dates. Once airfare is bought then we search around to find rental car deals.

Hopefully all works out for you though.