Changins Southwest Flights?

[ChickieToo]

I'm hoping one of you out there know what we can do and not break the bank here.

My husband is going to Denver on business. The flights are set, got great rates on Southwest. He's leaving this Thursday and is coming home Saturday. he paid about $280. Now he decided he wants to be home earlier on Saturday. When I go on the website, now that we are upon the travel date, earlier Saturday flights are $400.

The question is, does Southwest allow you to change flights the day of the flight if there is space without incurring the extra $ for that leg of the flight? I remember something about them letting you make changes without cost after midnight the day of, but I'm sure I got it all twisted.

Anyone know the answer to this?

 

[Green Tea]

I thought they did not allow same day standby; you pay the increased fee or you take your booked flight. The website was really clear when I looked into this, but it has been a while.

 

[ChickieToo]

Thanks. Maybe I'll call and ask a hypothetical.

 

[Suz D]

Green Tea is right (although like most things, there is always the chance of a customer service rep bending the rules).

 

[cats mom]

Overall I love SW, unfortuantely they tend to dig their heels in over that little detail though.

Not long ago I got to the airport early and asked about taking a flight that was just getting ready to depart instead of waiting several hours for my scheduled flight. Sure, no problem, as long as I was willing to pay the difference between my discounted ding rate and the current walk up rate. That difference would have been almost twice what I originally paid. Ummm, no thanks.

So I watched the half empty plane take off, then sat and waited for my flight, which was overbooked. Honestly, did they not realize my flight was overbooked when I was standing there ready and willing to get on the earlier underbooked flight?

SW ended up offering people all kinds of incentives to voluntarily take a bump from my flight (last one of the night btw). Not exactly smart business practice IMO. But they sure showed me that I better follow their booking rules.

Like Suz D says, there's always hope, but I'd tell your DH to be prepared to take that later flight if he doesn't want to pay the big bucks.

 

[ChickieToo]

That's quite a story, cats mom. God knows how much more money it cost them in vouchers and free flights and hotel rooms to bounce people from an overbooked flight.

I guess we are out of luck. He didn't realize it was our daughter's last soccer game that night. He lands about an 15 minutes before the game starts and the airport is about an hour away. Oh well.

Thanks everyone.