Post all SW questions concerns, etc. here...

[Gitelfor]

I think what happens in those cases is they can only move so many passengers to each selected flight. I think sometimes people are fine with the new flight they were given (or don't even realize they can go back in and play around to move to a different flight) and then sometimes people are like "yeah no this isn't going to work".

I was previously told by Southwest that the changes are computer-generated, and the program has some glitches. Even though the changes are supposed to be checked, very often they are not. I once had a connecting itinerary that Southwest changed, but somehow, only the second leg got rebooked, with no way to get me to the connecting flight.

BTW, the unsatisfactory itinerary thru BWI is now sold out, but that nonstop is still available.

 

[Neener16]

Got the dreaded email tonight. Both our departing and returning flights were changed. The flight from BDL to MCO was changed, but at least it remained a nonstop flight. It was the last one of the day so I’m not surprised. The flight home went from a nonstop leaving at 5:30 pm, to a 9:30 am flight that stopped in Baltimore. We would have lost an entire day. Switched to a nonstop the following day and made a 1 night reservation at the Swan. Sigh.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I was previously told by Southwest that the changes are computer-generated, and the program has some glitches. Even though the changes are supposed to be checked, very often they are not. I once had a connecting itinerary that Southwest changed, but somehow, only the second leg got rebooked, with no way to get me to the connecting flight.

BTW, the unsatisfactory itinerary thru BWI is now sold out, but that nonstop is still available.

Yeah it's all computer stuff. It can't possibly move every passenger from a cancelled flight all to one flight, they'll space it out with some passengers going to this flight others to another, etc. Makes sense why you're seeing one flight now sold out but another not although it could easily be that non-stop one with the connection in BWI not. I'm betting you some passengers were moved to the non-stop flight though.

That glitch you mentioned though would be annoying to see, and a SMH moment for sure.

 

[mom2elle]

Our flight from PHL to MCO on April 9th was cancelled/changed. Instead of a 9:35am direct flight that got us into MCO at 12:15 - we were rebooked on a flight from Philly to St Louis, St. Louis to Omaha, Omaha to Orlando (8:10 am to 4:20 pm). Um, no thanks. Trying to rebook now but options are dreadful. Southwest has dropped almost all nonstops from PHL to MCO - I don’t get it!

Now I just got the email about our return flight home - which was another am direct flight (arriving in Phl around noon) that got cancelled and I was rebooked on an evening flight with a connection (arriving back in PHL at 11:15pm). There are no other SW options that will get me home at a decent hour. Any chance I can request a refund? It was a WGA fare…

 

[Gitelfor]

Now I just got the email about our return flight home - which was another am direct flight (arriving in Phl around noon) that got cancelled and I was rebooked on an evening flight with a connection (arriving back in PHL at 11:15pm). There are no other SW options that will get me home at a decent hour. Any chance I can request a refund? It was a WGA fare…

Contact Southwest to request a complete refund to original form of payment. The time change is substantial enough for a refund. Make sure to let them know you do not want a travel credit.

 

[EACarlson]

Now I just got the email about our return flight home - which was another am direct flight (arriving in Phl around noon) that got cancelled and I was rebooked on an evening flight with a connection (arriving back in PHL at 11:15pm). There are no other SW options that will get me home at a decent hour. Any chance I can request a refund? It was a WGA fare…

You absolutely can request a full refund. DOT regulations require that airlines give a full refund on request for any "substantial schedule change." What is considered "substantial" is left to each airline, but adding a stop, changing flight number are all automatically eligible.

 

[Lsdolphin]

Oh my gosh!! I just posted on Sunday about my 4/9 flight being changed from a direct flight from MCO to BWI to a flight going from MCO to Boston than on to BWI....there were no direct flights available for me to change to so I ended up spending 2 hours on phone trying to add an additional night on to my resort reservation and then changing return flight from MCO to BWI to a direct flight on 4/10 in the morning. I received a confirmation for the new flight! Then this morning I was Just checking to see if price had changed and lo and behold my flight had been changed again from a 9:00 am flight to a flight leaving MCO at 9;20pm and arriving at BWI at 11:20 pm. I have a 3 hour drive home from BWI aireport! I didn’t even get an email from SWA about this change! And when I immediately went to change the flight the site would not allow me to make a change and I had to call instead. I could see that there were only a few seats left on the few remaining direct flights and nothing at fare level...after being on hold for 84 minutes I didn’t see anything left that was direct!
The SWA rep finally got me the last seat on the 6:40 flight out of MCO on 4/9 which hadn’t even been available when I was trying to change my flight on Sunday. So now flight has been changed back 4/9 and I just spent another hour on the phone charging my resort reservation to delete the extra day I had to add since I couldnt do that online.
Soooo, in the end after hours and hours on the phone between SWA and Disney on 2 different days I’m basically back where I started....with a 6:40 pm flight instead of my original 5:40 pm flight for the day I’d originally booked!!! This is insane! And the flight that I paid $114 is now $595! Although I didn’t have to pay that increased amount but I still think I should have received some compensation for what I’ve been through.

 

[Avery&Todd]

Oh my gosh!! I just posted on Sunday about my 4/9 flight being changed from a direct flight from MCO to BWI to a flight going from MCO to Boston than on to BWI....there were no direct flights available for me to change to so I ended up spending 2 hours on phone trying to add an additional night on to my resort reservation and then changing return flight from MCO to BWI to a direct flight on 4/10 in the morning. I received a confirmation for the new flight! Then this morning I was Just checking to see if price had changed and lo and behold my flight had been changed again from a 9:00 am flight to a flight leaving MCO at 9;20pm and arriving at BWI at 11:20 pm. I have a 3 hour drive home from BWI aireport! I didn’t even get an email from SWA about this change! And when I immediately went to change the flight the site would not allow me to make a change and I had to call instead. I could see that there were only a few seats left on the few remaining direct flights and nothing at fare level...after being on hold for 84 minutes I didn’t see anything left that was direct!
The SWA rep finally got me the last seat on the 6:40 flight out of MCO on 4/9 which hadn’t even been available when I was trying to change my flight on Sunday. So now flight has been changed back 4/9 and I just spent another hour on the phone charging my resort reservation to delete the extra day I had to add since I couldnt do that online.
Soooo, in the end after hours and hours on the phone between SWA and Disney on 2 different days I’m basically back where I started....with a 6:40 pm flight instead of my original 5:40 pm flight for the day I’d originally booked!!! This is insane! And the flight that I paid $114 is now $595! Although I didn’t have to pay that increased amount but I still think I should have received some compensation for what I’ve been through.

What a friggin MESS!!

 

[mickey916]

Oh my gosh!! I just posted on Sunday about my 4/9 flight being changed from a direct flight from MCO to BWI to a flight going from MCO to Boston than on to BWI....there were no direct flights available for me to change to so I ended up spending 2 hours on phone trying to add an additional night on to my resort reservation and then changing return flight from MCO to BWI to a direct flight on 4/10 in the morning. I received a confirmation for the new flight! Then this morning I was Just checking to see if price had changed and lo and behold my flight had been changed again from a 9:00 am flight to a flight leaving MCO at 9;20pm and arriving at BWI at 11:20 pm. I have a 3 hour drive home from BWI aireport! I didn’t even get an email from SWA about this change! And when I immediately went to change the flight the site would not allow me to make a change and I had to call instead. I could see that there were only a few seats left on the few remaining direct flights and nothing at fare level...after being on hold for 84 minutes I didn’t see anything left that was direct!
The SWA rep finally got me the last seat on the 6:40 flight out of MCO on 4/9 which hadn’t even been available when I was trying to change my flight on Sunday. So now flight has been changed back 4/9 and I just spent another hour on the phone charging my resort reservation to delete the extra day I had to add since I couldnt do that online.
Soooo, in the end after hours and hours on the phone between SWA and Disney on 2 different days I’m basically back where I started....with a 6:40 pm flight instead of my original 5:40 pm flight for the day I’d originally booked!!! This is insane! And the flight that I paid $114 is now $595! Although I didn’t have to pay that increased amount but I still think I should have received some compensation for what I’ve been through.

Wow! Sorry to hear you went through all that but happy to hear it worked out okay (fingers crossed that no more changes come through for you). 4/10 was the date of my flight change too! I'm still on a non-stop flight but now we're not arriving home until 12:50 am...looks like we may be putting in for an additional vacation day off on Monday the 11th. Not a biggie since we have so many leftover vacation days due to the pandemic. I'm more concerned about our May trip since my sons won't have as much flexibility from work if our flights get changed.

 

[Gitelfor]

If your flight was involuntarily changed by Southwest and the system will not let you change to a more desirable direct (with layover, but no change of plane) or nonstop flight, you may need to contact Southwest for help. If you are booked on a WGA fare, but only Anytime and BS seats are left
(the most expensive seats), Southwest agents can book you, even though it’s a different fare class; of course, everything is subject to availability.

 

[focusondisney]

I had a flight booked April 14 - 21, nonstop from Buffalo. The flight on the 14th was around 6:45 am, getting in before 9:30. We decided to change our dates to about 2 weeks later. I didn’t like the times on SW for those new dates, so last week I booked on Jetblue. But I had forgotten I didn’t cancel the SW flights yet. Anyway, last night I got an email that my flight to Orlando from Buffalo was changed. Original flight: 6:45 AM, nonstop, arriving in Orlando at 9:25 AM. New flight: 6:20 PM, 2 hour layover in Baltimore, arriving in Orlando 11:45 PM! Arriving 14 hours after originally booked. The kicker is there is a nonstop at 11:30 am but they didn’t move my itinerary to that flight. Luckily I was just canceling anyway. And this was a business select so I had no issues with canceling for a refund. But if I had really wanted to keep that ticket I would be really annoyed. There was a survey after I cancelled. I listed SW last minute flight & schedule changes as the primary reason for cancelling. Hopefully others are commenting on it too.

Nonstop flights on the Buffalo - Orlando routes have gone from 4 each way to 1. And the times most days are not acceptable… 4:30 PM to Orlando & either 7 AM or 10:30 AM to Buffalo. I don’t mind getting up at 3:30 AM to go on vacation, but sure don’t want to do that to go home. And I don’t like doing layovers on SW with no assigned seats, people already on connecting flights before we can board etc. I worked hard to renew my Companion Pass for this year, which now looks like I won’t be using it at all. DH & I have over 270,000 SW points between us. Good thing they don’t expire. Until they get their act back together I’ll be willing to pay more for better flight times, assigned seats & nonstop flights on Jetblue. I may cancel the SW credit card & get JetBlue’s which gives 1 free suitcase for up to 4 people on the cardholder’s itinerary.

 

[Neener16]

Oh my gosh!! I just posted on Sunday about my 4/9 flight being changed from a direct flight from MCO to BWI to a flight going from MCO to Boston than on to BWI....there were no direct flights available for me to change to so I ended up spending 2 hours on phone trying to add an additional night on to my resort reservation and then changing return flight from MCO to BWI to a direct flight on 4/10 in the morning. I received a confirmation for the new flight! Then this morning I was Just checking to see if price had changed and lo and behold my flight had been changed again from a 9:00 am flight to a flight leaving MCO at 9;20pm and arriving at BWI at 11:20 pm. I have a 3 hour drive home from BWI aireport! I didn’t even get an email from SWA about this change! And when I immediately went to change the flight the site would not allow me to make a change and I had to call instead. I could see that there were only a few seats left on the few remaining direct flights and nothing at fare level...after being on hold for 84 minutes I didn’t see anything left that was direct!
The SWA rep finally got me the last seat on the 6:40 flight out of MCO on 4/9 which hadn’t even been available when I was trying to change my flight on Sunday. So now flight has been changed back 4/9 and I just spent another hour on the phone charging my resort reservation to delete the extra day I had to add since I couldnt do that online.
Soooo, in the end after hours and hours on the phone between SWA and Disney on 2 different days I’m basically back where I started....with a 6:40 pm flight instead of my original 5:40 pm flight for the day I’d originally booked!!! This is insane! And the flight that I paid $114 is now $595! Although I didn’t have to pay that increased amount but I still think I should have received some compensation for what I’ve been through.

This makes me so nervous. I did not even bother to try and add to my existing Disney reservation. We are at the Beach Club and no way I want to pay 2 more days at those prices. Booked Doubletree at the beginning or the trip and Swan at the end, left our existing Disney reservation as is. I am hoping there are no more changes....Sorry you had to go through this.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The kicker is there is a nonstop at 11:30 am but they didn’t move my itinerary to that flight.

I checked and that flight shows unavailable for all fare classes although I don't think it's necessarily a flight completely full (they might be temporarily blocking it due to background stuff), but not every person can be moved to the same flight. If you had let's say 100 people on a certain flight they cancelled they can't all move 100 people to 1 flight and they probably wouldn't even if that other flight wasn't completely sold out since it means they wouldn't be able to allow people to book it. If you were still going with SWA (which I know you've booked with JetBlue for a different time period) I would have said keep an eye out for that 11:30am flight to see if it opened back up again (or was removed entirely)

 

[Lsdolphin]

This makes me so nervous. I did not even bother to try and add to my existing Disney reservation. We are at the Beach Club and no way I want to pay 2 more days at those prices. Booked Doubletree at the beginning or the trip and Swan at the end, left our existing Disney reservation as is. I am hoping there are no more changes....Sorry you had to go through this.

its Definitely crazy!!!! this morning there was nothing available direct so my flight was moved to different day and now I just checked and the flight i wanted is now available on the same day they just moved me from

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

This makes me so nervous. I did not even bother to try and add to my existing Disney reservation. We are at the Beach Club and no way I want to pay 2 more days at those prices. Booked Doubletree at the beginning or the trip and Swan at the end, left our existing Disney reservation as is. I am hoping there are no more changes....Sorry you had to go through this.

Yeah I think if I was there it would be easier to add a day to Disney's reservation (we did that during Hurricane Irma) but for flight changes like this I do feel like other hotels are a bit easier to add or remove days in advance. I was nervous enough when in 2017 I was "changing" our Disney reservation to apply a room only discount lol. But I feel more comfortable with say changing Hilton or something like that.

 

[focusondisney]

I checked and that flight shows unavailable for all fare classes although I don't think it's necessarily a flight completely full (they might be temporarily blocking it due to background stuff), but not every person can be moved to the same flight. If you had let's say 100 people on a certain flight they cancelled they can't all move 100 people to 1 flight and they probably wouldn't even if that other flight wasn't completely sold out since it means they wouldn't be able to allow people to book it. If you were still going with SWA (which I know you've booked with JetBlue for a different time period) I would have said keep an eye out for that 11:30am flight to see if it opened back up again (or was removed entirely)

I’m sure it is blocked for moving people to. If I was keeping the times I would have called immediately & requested to move to that flight. I have family members traveling the week before that & had their flights cancelled Sunday night. They were originally moved to a late evening connecting flight, called & most got put on the late morning nonstop. The other 2 were moved to an connecting flight at a similar time so at least they can all travel to the airport together. But the agent told them same thing, keep an eye on that nonstop & they can use their 1 request to move to it if it opens up again.

 

[Lsdolphin]

SWA insane today! There was nothing available for MCO to BWI for 4/9 on Sun and my flight was caged to 4/10 and I had to change my resort reservatio. This morning my 4/10 flight was cancelled and they moved me back to 4/9 because there was nothing else to change me to on 4/10. So flight availability is changing from minute to minute!!! It’s a roller coaster

 

[Lsdolphin]

This makes me so nervous. I did not even bother to try and add to my existing Disney reservation. We are at the Beach Club and no way I want to pay 2 more days at those prices. Booked Doubletree at the beginning or the trip and Swan at the end, left our existing Disney reservation as is. I am hoping there are no more changes....Sorry you had to go through this.

Just keep checking!

 

[dez1978]

I think what irritates me the most about SW changes is that every single time they have moved me to a different, less desireable flight, my original flight was still available. I wasn't moved bc the flight was canceled. I've been able to call and have us all put right back on the flight I originally booked. I'd be slightly more understanding if my flight was canceled. But why are you kicking me off a flight that is still available for booking?

 

[leeniewdw]

I just rebooked an elderly friend’s flight that originally was a mid morning nonstop to MCO, but changed to an itinerary with a nighttime departure, connecting at BWI, and ETA after 1:00 a.m.! What was amazing was that there was an available evening nonstop that they did not move her to.

We had this happen in June 2021 on a direct flight from RDU to DEN. They moved us from a direct flight to a itinerary with TWO stops! When I went and looked, there was a direct flight departing about 2 hours earlier than our original flight. They did switch us easily. I thought maybe their algorithm didn't want to move people to an earlier flight, but this thread disproves that theory.

We're currently planning a quick trip first weekend in March to WDW on the only direct flight from RDU. It's way later than we'd choose for such a quick trip, but no connecting itinerary gets us there sooner. Guess we just have to hope I don't get an email since I know there won't be any direct options. I think we'd probably just cancel if it came to that. We'd probably prefer to stay home and not risk getting stuck somewhere an losing an entire day of an already super short trip.