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

[focusondisney]

Our 7:30 am nonstop flight on Labor Day has changed to a 5:45 am connecting in BWI. . I am so done with SW. These flights were just released a month ago for God’s sake. This isn’t 2020. They should have some kind of handle on what they’re doing by now. We fly out of Buffalo, things have gotten much busier here now that Canadians are traveling again too. And they’re cancelling nonstops.

We’re going down next week too. When our nonstop SW flights for this trip got deleted, I cancelled & rebooked on JB. Decent price & our nonstops are at perfect times with NO changes. Within days, SW added nonstops back in. We had 300K SW points & a companion pass, so I booked September with them. I’ll wait a few days to see if our return flights are cancelled too. JB has another nonstop so I will cancel this 5:45 flight & again book on JB. I am beyond irritated with SW.

 

[focusondisney]

Same. Direct, perfect time flights in August changed to layover or terrible time (7:25am leaving MCO). Feel like it's bait & switch. I booked SW because they had the better flight than JetBlue. Now JetBlue would be better, but the prices has gone up and my $ is tied up in SW.

Don’t forget, since SW cancelled your flight, you can get a full refund.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Our Aug 10th and 23rd flights were changed yesterday (10th) and today. I was able to change for free to a flight with only 1 stopover (Buffalo - San Jose) and arriving 3 hours earlier. Very happy with that!

 

[han22735]

Same. Direct, perfect time flights in August changed to layover or terrible time (7:25am leaving MCO). Feel like it's bait & switch. I booked SW because they had the better flight than JetBlue. Now JetBlue would be better, but the prices has gone up and my $ is tied up in SW.

Same for me. We had perfect direct flights going and coming back. Now they only direct are 5am or 630pm and coming home 715am or 845pm. Worst flight choices ever for me on SW

 

[LadybugsMum]

Our great flight schedule has been changed for Aug 21. Instead of leaving at 7 am, we're now leaving at 5:15 am. I'm probably going to move the flights to the day before so we can leave at a very slightly more civilized 6:10am, but it only gives us 50min at BWI. Sigh. No word about our return flights yet, but they are at least still showing on the schedule as of right now.

 

[DebbieB]

View attachment 663336

ETA: It's showing this way for all available dates. Has to be IT problem.

They fly BWI to PHL?

Just curious if anyone knows why SW has been inching their way out of PHL? We've flown AA but tried SW about 6yrs ago or so and loved the airline. The terminal in Philly is also nicer and cleaner IMO. We always flew on full flights. It seemed like they had a good thing going. It just seems odd bc it's Philly and Newark and where I am from those are the 2 airports everyone here uses. Especially for direct flights.

They have pulled out of other Legacy Hubs or reduced service. PHL is American, Newark is United, Detroit is Delta. Tough competition I guess.

 

[Evita_W]

I posted this question in the disabilities forum as well, but figured some here may also have more insight.

We are going to be cruising out of Miami and Southwest just changed our flights to where we only have a 40 minute layover in Austin. That seems like too tight of a squeeze to make the connection with a scooter or needing wheelchair service and still preboard, which we need to do as we have paid for an extra seat and need the three together.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of time options to get us from Austin to Miami, so we are looking at changing to Fort Lauderdale, 2hich has better time options, but we already have a hotel in Miami, so we need a form of transportation from the Fort Lauderdale airport to our hotel in Miami that can accomodate a Pride Victory 10.2 scooter if we went that route.

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions? Or is there a better option that I am overlooking? We are flying from Long Beach, California of that helps.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

They fly BWI to PHL?

They have pulled out of other Legacy Hubs or reduced service. PHL is American, Newark is United, Detroit is Delta. Tough competition I guess.

Lol! That's why everything disappeared! I am one of many who has caved and will be flying BWI to MCO for the non stop even though PHL is closer for me. I keep randomly checking to see if they snuck in any direct PHL flights (wishful thinking, I know) so I must have accidentally had it in one of the fields.

I *thought* I was looking at my BWI-MCO dates when I posted that ss. Obviously not.

 

[EACarlson]

My August flight to MCO just got changed too, leaving 4 hours later, so I switched to an early morning flight. I had booked with points and the flight I switched to was actually fewer points. I didn’t get a refund for the difference in points though, but I should have - right? I’ve done this before and I know I have gotten the points back.

Update! I contacted SW via Twitter last night. They didn’t reply until this morning. They did refund points, however it wasn’t enough. Then I realized the price had gone up overnight and that’s what they based my refund on. However, I had taken a screenshot last night of the price and sent that back to them. They then adjusted my points correctly. Once they replied to me this morning, everything was handled very quickly. I got about 40,000 points back.

For anyone else here or for future reference, because you were in a free change window due to your flight changes. The system ignores all price differences if the other conditions are met (within 14 days, same city pair, etc.) In this situation you need to call them to get the points/money back.

 

[han22735]

Only positive about this change for me is we are now coming in a day earlier in order to get the flight we wanted. Lol

 

[elle101me]

Our August flights were both changed. The positive is that I changed both to better flight times. Here's hoping that they don't make changes again as we're still 4 months out.

 

[my523]

Any tips of finding the cheapest SW flights using points when your dates are set for Disney?

We wont be going until December, but I am looking at the current pricing for IND to MCO. Cheapest one way is 11,457 points. During summer 2020, it was way cheaper. I get COVID travel had a lot to do with it, but I don't know what to expect right now.

 

[happ]

Any tips of finding the cheapest SW flights using points when your dates are set for Disney?

We wont be going until December, but I am looking at the current pricing for IND to MCO. Cheapest one way is 11,457 points. During summer 2020, it was way cheaper. I get COVID travel had a lot to do with it, but I don't know what to expect right now.

My tip would be to book as soon as the schedule is released, check the points cost regularly after booking, and hope that the price goes down so you can get some points back. Then there's the part where you hold your breath until travel day waiting for the flight to get changed.

 

[Toolulu22]

Arrrggghhhh. Our August flights were also changed. Non-stop to MCO now has a stop in BWI and arrives at 11:30 am instead of 8:50 am. Return is still non-stop, but is getting us home at 11 pm instead of 7:35 pm.

We are flexible with our travel dates, but a quick search isn’t yielding many non-stop options that appeal. I agree with pp who referred to these tactics as similar to “bait-and-switch”. This flight change shenanigans with SW has happened one to many times. My husband and I both cancelled our SW cards over the past 2 years and we’ve continued to fly them because they fly out of a small airport 10 minutes from our home. This is getting ridiculous though. It started happening before the pandemic and hasn‘t improved.

I have to check some other dates my husband has booked, and then we may just been done.

 

[mamamelody2]

SW changed our 9/3 GRR to MCO flight yesterday. We were able to switch to a morning flight 9/2, which is much better than the evening flight we had 9/3. We didn't want that flight in the first place, but flights had already been open a while when we booked and that's the only flight we had enough points for. Happy to get a better flight!

They also changed our horrible 6 AM home-bound flight on 6/5. They only changed it by 5 minutes, but thanks to their change policies, we were able to change to an evening flight which would have been $500 each person if we had to actually pay for it. Lovely!

 

[RLGNC]

This thread is making me very nervous. I don't fly frequently and never before with SW. I had no IDEA it was so frequent for flights to get changed like what I'm reading here. I carefully constructed my flight times (as I'm sure everyone here did) to make the most of my travel days (well at least my arrival day...by choice flying out at 5:45 a.m. to have a max day in MK). I'll be crossing my fingers until September hoping things don't get changed. I assume they notify you by email, or do you just have to check periodically to see if anything has changed?

 

[cmarsh31]

This thread is making me very nervous. I don't fly frequently and never before with SW. I had no IDEA it was so frequent for flights to get changed like what I'm reading here. I carefully constructed my flight times (as I'm sure everyone here did) to make the most of my travel days (well at least my arrival day...by choice flying out at 5:45 a.m. to have a max day in MK). I'll be crossing my fingers until September hoping things don't get changed. I assume they notify you by email, or do you just have to check periodically to see if anything has changed?

Just assume your flights will be changed, probably sometime in the next 6 weeks. I haven't had a single flight on SW or JB not changed in the past 2 years.

 

[Erica Ladd]

Y’all are beginning to make me worry about our perfect flights RDU-MCO on 9/10!!!!

 

[Cruzin’Sisters]

This thread is making me very nervous. I don't fly frequently and never before with SW. I had no IDEA it was so frequent for flights to get changed like what I'm reading here. I carefully constructed my flight times (as I'm sure everyone here did) to make the most of my travel days (well at least my arrival day...by choice flying out at 5:45 a.m. to have a max day in MK). I'll be crossing my fingers until September hoping things don't get changed. I assume they notify you by email, or do you just have to check periodically to see if anything has changed?

All airlines are rearranging flight times. Here is my sister’s tale of woe. She booked a noon return flight MIA to MHT following a DCL cruise on American because the only one Southwest had was at 5:30 pm getting in at 11:30 pm. (1.5 hr layover in BWI). Well, American changed her flight to leave at 2:30 pm. Then last week it changed to leaving at 4:30 pm arriving at 11:30. (2.5 layover) in Chicago. American won’t refund money if flight change is less than 4 hours. If her flight was at noon but now 4:30, that seems like 4 + hours to me. They argued that is was only a 2 hour change. She couldn’t cancel the first change to 2:30. Anyway she held her ground and after an hour later on hold, she got her refund. Then she booked the Southwest flight at 5:30 pm which “stinks“ to get back home so late, but using rewards points makes it smell a bit better. And no baggage fees….

 

[MinnieMSue]

I am especially frustrated with SW changing flights so soon after opening booking last month. This seems very irresponsible of them. I wonder why they would do this? Surely they have flight schedules figured out by now coming out of the pandemic. I did see some press about pilots complaining of fatigue. Is this why? We will probably never know but this is really not a good look for them and quite frustrating for the consumer. Ugh. Waiting to see how my October flights will be affected…