Southwest frustrations!

[TinkerBelle_325]

Let me preface this by saying we have flown Southwest dozens of times and feel that it is one of the best airlines left! The prices cannot be beat, the ammenities far outshine other airlines and their staff generally provide exceptional customer service.

My parents and I are flying Southwest from Buffalo to Orlando on July 31st. Originally our return date was August 5th. About a week ago we decided to extend our stay so I called Southwest to change the inbound flight from the 5the to the 8th.

Why did I call? When I attempted to make the changes online we had so many ticketless travel funds that it would not take a credit card payment. The website would not allow me to remove any of the travel funds but it also would not let me pay the balance.

What should have been a simple call turned into 1 hour and 20 minutes on the phone, the majority of which I spent on hold and when I was speaking to an agent they were barking "What on earth did you do to complicate this reservation?" Not exactly stellar customer service.

After 45 minutes, I was told that my reservation had been split into FOUR confirmations!

DDad had 1 confirmation with outbound and inbound flights
DMom had 1 confirmation with outbound and inbound flights
I had 1 confirmation for inbound and 1 for outbound......

or at least that is what I was told.

I asked the agent to stay on the line until I had recieved all confirmations (the call was now at the 1 hour 20 minute mark) and she said "You'll get them" and hung up!

Needless to say I only recieved DDad's and my outbound.

I called back, explained the situation and after another 20 minutes a new agent located DMom's confirmation and my inbound confirmation.

I glanced over the 4 confirmations and forwarded them to DDad.

As our trip is now 1 week away, DDad looked at the confirmations last night.

Our outbound flight is departing Buffalo at 6:50am, direct to Orlando. But DDad noticed he was on a flight that departed at 6:40...stopped in Baltimore....stopped in Norfolk and THEN got to Orlando! We had never asked the agent to touch our outbound flights! To make matters worse, this 6:40 flight DOESN'T EXIST ON JULY 31st!!!

We called Southwest for the THIRD time at 11:45pm last night. I will say I am thankful for the 24 hour customer service! The agent was very nice and actually uttered "Good God! What on earth did they do?? I've never seen anything like this!" when he pulled up our reservation.

He was able to switch my DDad back to our original flight. No charge despite the fare increase.

My question is: How did Southwest switch my Dad onto Flight 0343 on JULY 31st when no such flight EXISTS on JULY 31st??

The issue was properly resolved, but it was a waste of 2 hours of my life and far more complicated than switching an airline reservation should ever be.

 

[HelenParr]

That sounds awfully frustrating. I've always had good luck with Southwest -- but the poor service you received was not acceptable. The CS rep sounds incompetent.

This won't make you feel very much better -- but with separate reservation numbers, you have better chances at getting at least one low number A boarding pass if more than one of you checks in at 24hour mark, or you have two browsers open. (Tiny silver lining.)

 

[mousey]

I think part of the problem is that you can't put in as many ticketless travel credits like you could before. I booked our flight Buf-Mco and when the fare dropped I ended up having to have 4 different confirmation numbers and 2 credits I couldn't even apply and had to use the credit card. I wish they would go back to their old system.

 

[TinkerBelle_325]

That sounds awfully frustrating. I've always had good luck with Southwest -- but the poor service you received was not acceptable. The CS rep sounds incompetent.

This won't make you feel very much better -- but with separate reservation numbers, you have better chances at getting at least one low number A boarding pass if more than one of you checks in at 24hour mark, or you have two browsers open. (Tiny silver lining.)

We each have laptops and will definitely be checking in at the 24 hour mark. We are hoping for low A's

It was definitely frustrating lol. I've had great luck with them up to this point too, and the agent that resolved the issue was fantastic. I agree that the first rep was incompetent!

I think part of the problem is that you can't put in as many ticketless travel credits like you could before. I booked our flight Buf-Mco and when the fare dropped I ended up having to have 4 different confirmation numbers and 2 credits I couldn't even apply and had to use the credit card. I wish they would go back to their old system.

I agree that the limit on ticketless travel credits was part of the issue. However, I informed the first rep that I was more than happy to only use 3 credits and a credit card. She was the one that took it upon herself to use all the credits and proceed to change flights she wasn't supposed to