Southwest ?? - Changing booking?

[pdarrah]

I am hoping some of you SouthWest experts can give me your thoughts.

We have flights booked to fly to Orlando Sept 28 and return Oct 1. Today we received a DING for our exact flight on the 28th for $20 left per person. I called SW and asked about how to handle this and was told to go ahead and book the DING fare and leave the original reservation alone (its a round-trip). She said that when we don't use the flight to Orlando on the 28th (because we'll be using our DING reservation) that the flight will be automatically canceled in the system and we'll have a credit for the cost of the flight. The return flight would not be affected. Since I will be traveling to Orlando again in January, having a credit is fine.

She seemed very sure and I have gone ahead and booked the DING fare, but this seems to good to be true. Does it really work this way? Do they really want me "sitting" on 2 seats in their reservation system when I am only going to be using 1?

Thanks for any thoughts,

pdarrah

 

[DonnaL]

Wow......must have been a new agent......I'm sure this will work, but, in the meantime it's your dollars sitting out there .......not to mention the fact SW is going to end up losing money because those seats you're "sitting on" with no intention of using could be sold to another consumer. The better option is to simply have your DING screen up and follow the booking procedure all the way to the payment information, then leave the DING screen and pull up a second screen and basically work both screens at the same time. On the second screen you'll need to go to TRAVEL CENTER from SW's home page. Once at Travel Center go to cancel reservation and simply put your original confirmation number and name of the person whose cc was used for the ressie......cancel this ressie and immediately go back to the DING screen and you should be able to see you have the credit from the original ressie showing as Ticketless Travel Funds. Simply use the amount of TTF's you need for the new DING ressie and book it. I always then go to the TTF page (which is also at Travel Center and print out a copy of the amount of Fund's I have left after making the new ressie. It looks complicated, but, as you work through the screens it's really very easy to do. I still don't believe a reservation agent for SW told you to do it that way......Wow...obviously not enough training or maybe the end of a shift and didn't feel like explaining.......but, still poor.....

Maybe not so poor.......I just went back and reread your post and I think I know why the agent told you to do it that way........your original ressie was probably a round trip confirmation and you couldn't cancel it without affecting the return portion. DING fares is one good reason to book one way fares on SW......then you can use the method I described above. I apologize to the SW travel agent........

 

[mareed]

Yes, it really will work the way Southwest described. We had a situation where I booked the entire family under one confirmation #. DH ended up having a business trip right before our vacation, so he flew separately. So, we had 3 of 4 people on a reservation who actually took the flight, and my husband's portion of the fare was available as a credit after the flight. Southwest is really amazingly flexible about things like this. I hope they never change that!

 

[tracys2cents]

Unless I understand it incorrectly, DING is just a notification that there are new sale fares up and ready on Southwest.com. There are no "Ding" fares...they are fares readily available to anyone on Southwest.com, ding is just an alert.

So go to travel center on southwest.com and follow the links to changing your reservation and tickets. If the fare you want comes up, rebook it, if not you keep your old fare. This only works if you originally booked on southwest.com and not over the phone.

 

[gigi1313]

Unless I understand it incorrectly, DING is just a notification that there are new sale fares up and ready on Southwest.com. There are no "Ding" fares...they are fares readily available to anyone on Southwest.com, ding is just an alert.

So go to travel center on southwest.com and follow the links to changing your reservation and tickets. If the fare you want comes up, rebook it, if not you keep your old fare. This only works if you originally booked on southwest.com and not over the phone.

i believe you are incorrect... DING fares are NOT available thru www.southwest.com directly, but ONLY thru the DING screen/alert... i have tried to get a DING fare from a computer where i did not have DING downloaded and was unable to see anything beyond the standard fare, yet my friend was sitting at her computer w/a DING and was able to get significantly lower fares...

i have also been able to change just one leg of a round trip and convert it to a DING fare... although i don't remember exactly how i did it... i do, however, now book each leg separately as it is easier...

also, to the OP who booked a DING w/the intent of just not showing up and getting the original booking cancelled... do you not run the risk of having the entire reservation cancelled? thereby leaving you w/no return flight? i would confirm that!

 

[cepmom]

Unless I understand it incorrectly, DING is just a notification that there are new sale fares up and ready on Southwest.com. There are no "Ding" fares...they are fares readily available to anyone on Southwest.com, ding is just an alert.

So go to travel center on southwest.com and follow the links to changing your reservation and tickets. If the fare you want comes up, rebook it, if not you keep your old fare. This only works if you originally booked on southwest.com and not over the phone.

gigi13 is correct....there are Ding! fares and they are only available through the Ding program that needs to be downloaded. When the Ding window pops, you click on the message and it brings you to a screen to select dates, airports etc.

These Ding's are not available unless you go through the Ding pop up window.

 

[2Princes2Princesses]

I had booked a DING fare for our flight home in September, and then had an even better DING for a nonstop home. So, I cancelled my first flight, they refunded the tax to my CC and gave me a SW credit. I then booked the new DING and used the credit to pay for it. I am not sure why they thought you should keep your old flight rather than cancelling it.

I would contact them again and check with another agent, even though it may work that way, why tie up your funds until then??

 

[pdarrah]

My major problem seems to have been originally booking a "round trip" fare. Since the DING was only for 1/2 of the originally booking (the outbound flight) there wasn't any way to cancel 1/2 the booking and keep the return flight.

However, SW solved my problem today by offering the return flight at the same fare as when I originally booked it last month. I was able to cancel the round trip fare, book the new return (at the same price) using some of the credit and still have about $200 credit to use when I can book my January trip.

I still don't know what would have happened with my original booking and the one-way outbound DING fare - hopefully it would have worked just as the agent told me - but now I don't have to worry about it!

Lesson learned - always book 2 one-way fares instead of a round trip!

Pdarrah

 

[scammermom]

What I did was similiar to DonnaL but I called CSR to do the cancel and I could do the new Ding flight. She told me that sometimes the money I have already paid is not available immediately and it can take a minute to an hour. And I didn't want to lose the original flight times. So they did the cancel and I did the Ding using the same confirmation number. And I have $100 credit towards my flights in Sept!

In May, I was able to get the Ding fares for both flights at the same time. However, we are leaving this time in late Sept and returning first week of Oct which aren't available yet.