DING question HELP!

[Twende]

I need one more fare to MCO in December.

If I book the internet fare now and then a better price comes up on DING...what happens? Do I have to cancel the internet fare and is there a fee for that? Do they credit me the difference and I use it for future flights or do I get the money credited to my charge card?

I am so tired of waiting for something to come up on DING. Like this morning it is after 11 AM and not one single DING yet!
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[Diznenut]

I caught a ding but to tampa instead of MCO. I'm hoping another one will come up so we dont have to get a rental.

As for your question, I talked to a SW Customer Service person and she said you can trade. What you have to do is cancel the original fare. They will immediately issue credit to your account. You then use that credit to get the new fare.

There's lots of posts about this.

 

[SB in KY]

If you get a DING you want for a trip go ahead and start the booking process...when you get to the page where you enter CC info and they ask if you want to aply ticketless travel funds just minimize the screen and open a new window...go to SW and cancel your old flight. At the end it will give you a confirmation number...write it down, close out the screen and then open back up the other page....all you have to do is enter the confirmation number you wrote down for ticketless travel funds and complete the booking of the DING fare. (if you do it this way it holds the DING fare for you while you are cancelling the original fare so there is no risk you will cancel your old tickets and then the lower DING will not be available when you try to book it).

The difference in the fares will still be in your ticketless travel funds (they are good for 1 year from the date the original ticket was purchased and they will extend them 1 time for up to 6 months which means you have a total of 18 months max to use the ticketless travel funds). I have never tried to get a refund on those because we fly so much on SW that we always can use them later....but I have heard of a lot of people that have called customer service and pleaded their case and gotten them to refund the difference to their credit cards.

BTW....you can use the ticketless travel funds for anyone...not just the person that booked the original ticket and there is no fee to do any of the changes on SW.

 

[Twende]

Thanks guys that is the information I needed. I was afraid to just go on and book a flight and then have a really good DING finally come up.

DING is super slow today and still no dates for into December!

Oh well at least if I go on and book a flight we know we will have the ticket we need just not the right price. Thanks again!

 

[blessedby3]

Just be careful when cancelling and rebooking. My friend did this because I have seen posts about people doing it and a better ding fare came out. I told her the fare I got and she called SWA and had a customer service agent on the phone and they were doing it together. She ended up LOSING her seats and the CSA told her not to panic that people do this all the time, but the CSA could not get the tickets back and even after a supervisor got on the line he said sorry, but she could buy the seats for the full price of about $900 and she was paying $350 with a ding. She thankfully ended up getting seats again with the ding, but had to change the flight time for the flight down, and had to add 2 days on to her trip to get a time to come back. Im not sure exactly how this mess up happened, but I just wanted people to understand that it can get messed up because it happened to my friend.

 

[SB in KY]

That is why you never want to cancel your old tickets before you have got the DING fare in the booking process!! If you start booking the DING fare and just minimize the screen on the page where you start entering the payment info the tickets are "on hold" so to speak....they will not let anyone else book them as long as you are in the booking process....then you can open a new window to cancel your old tickets and use the funds from them when you go back to the booking page to get your DING fare.....

Customer service always just tells you to cancel the old ones and then book the DING fares....I am sure that would work 99% of the time, but once in a blue moon someone will book the last few seats on that flight while you are cancelling the other tickets and then you are stuck like your friend was. I have heard of that happening to other people too...

some clever DIS'er taught me the 2 window trick, so you never get stuck without tickets!!

 

[Twende]

This sounds good to me. Now if just DING would pick up a bit. It has really slowed down to a crawl and the dates are not even into December at all!

 

[SB in KY]

Yeah....what is with the DINGs lately....only dates into mid November and really lousy fares!! I am ready to see some REAL Dings again!!