Southwest Is Awful

[magsmom]

I just found out today that Southwest lowered its flights from BDL to ORL. I had a $80.00 credit left over from my flight last February (booked 9/27/03) that I applied to my upcoming trip in August. I booked the new flight last week. I rebooked at the lower rate today. I am going again in October. My flight dropped in price by $180.00 WHICH I CANNOT APPLY to my October flight.

I rebooked my flight at the lower rate, but I will lose the entire $180.00 credit on 9/27/04. Apparently I "mixed old and new
funds." Had I not used my credit I would have $100.00 to use on my Oct. trip. Sorry, this makes no sense to me.

In the future I will fly Song. They now fly out of BDL, and their rates are comperable. Southwest treats you like livestock when you travel. I can accept that because their prices are low. I will not accept being treated like a cash "cow" that will be cheated by these sobs.

 

[bg4]

I read this and re-read it and then re-read it again and found this

I had a $80.00 credit left over from my flight last February (booked 9/27/03)------------but I will lose the entire $180.00 credit on 9/27/04

You realize you answered your own question and SWA should have told you the rules that apply.

Credits are only good for ONE YEAR. You got them on 09/03 and they expire one year after - 09/04!. Has nothing with Southwest being SOB's- which may or may not be true but I have never seen this btw.

You were not treated as anything but a customer and all the rules applied to you as anyone else.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Originally posted by magsmom
I just found out today that Southwest lowered its flights from BDL to ORL. I had a $80.00 credit left over from my flight last February (booked 9/27/03) that I applied to my upcoming trip in August. I booked the new flight last week. I rebooked at the lower rate today. I am going again in October. My flight dropped in price by $180.00 WHICH I CANNOT APPLY to my October flight.

I rebooked my flight at the lower rate, but I will lose the entire $180.00 credit on 9/27/04. Apparently I "mixed old and new
funds." Had I not used my credit I would have $100.00 to use on my Oct. trip. Sorry, this makes no sense to me.

In the future I will fly Song. They now fly out of BDL, and their rates are comperable. Southwest treats you like livestock when you travel. I can accept that because their prices are low. I will not accept being treated like a cash "cow" that will be cheated by these sobs.

If you look on your cancellation/credit from your booking from 9/03 you will see that you must complete travel by 9/27/03.
Makes perfect sense to me, it is spelled out very clearly on the web pages and on your cancellation print out. It also states that any future reservations made with those funds will still have the same expiration date. IE: 9/27/03.
Calling them names because you did not take the time to read the rules is not really very fair. SWA does not treat anyone like cattle and in fact they treat people exceptionally well. Their attitude is one of the best in the industry. They must be doing something right cause they are the only ones making money and have an outstanding on time and safety record.
I called today, spoke with a wonderful agent and got a credit applied to my credit card. She also told me that I was a wonderful customer and a pleasure to work with. I told her it was easy cause she was siimply GREAT!!!!

Wait till you try Song and watch them change the flights and not notify you and change your seats, etc. I expect you will have some wonderful words for them too.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Originally posted by bg4
I read this and re-read it and then re-read it again and found this



You realize you answered your own question and SWA should have told you the rules that apply.

Credits are only good for ONE YEAR. You got them on 09/03 and they expire one year after - 09/04!. Has nothing with Southwest being SOB's- which may or may not be true but I have never seen this btw.

You were not treated as anything but a customer and all the rules applied to you as anyone else.

She was told and if she had read the cancellation policy, she would not have to be trying to pin the blame on SWA.

 

[magsmom]

Please read "Southwest Credit" below. We will see if I get my credit. All I did was change my flight. According to the 2nd rep. I am entitled to a $180.00 credit.

I feel a little better about southwest, but it doesn't make the call that I cite above any less obnoxious. I'm sorry if you don't agree, but my second call to Southwest points out just how bad the service on my first call was!

 

[bg4]

I rebooked my flight at the lower rate

What dou mean by "re-book" - as in cancel reservation and make new one?

What I ALWAYS do is call SWA and speak to CS to get credit if fares go down. I would not want to lose my reservation.

just my $.02

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Originally posted by bg4
What dou mean by "re-book" - as in cancel reservation and make new one?

What I ALWAYS do is call SWA and speak to CS to get credit if fares go down. I would not want to lose my reservation.

just my $.02

Apparently the SWA agents cannot see this round of specials.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Originally posted by magsmom
Please read "Southwest Credit" below. We will see if I get my credit. All I did was change my flight. According to the 2nd rep. I am entitled to a $180.00 credit.

I feel a little better about southwest, but it doesn't make the call that I cite above any less obnoxious. I'm sorry if you don't agree, but my second call to Southwest points out just how bad the service on my first call was!

If you changed your flight, you won't get a refund. The only way you get a refund is if you rebook at the lower fare without a flight change.

You will get your 180.00 credit, but, I doubt you will get a refund.
I consider myself very lucky to have received a credit back to my CC, they are, after all, non refundable fares.

 

[dkrause716]

In March I booked our air for our July trip with SW. At $158 pp I was very pleased! A few weeks later I rec'd an e-mail about internet sales. Checked it out and sure enough our flights were now $98 rt. I was so excited! I immediately called SW and spoke with a lovely cs person. Indeed I could get the lower rate. She walked me through the cancellation and rebooking process. I ended up with a $240 credit which my daughter and I are using to fly to California. I never thought to ask for a refund but I was thrilled with the credit. (You would never get that out of US Air!)

I think they are a 1st class operation!

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

You would never get that out of US Air!)

Or Delta, Song, United, AA , etc.

 

[sweet maxine]

I'm not sure how this happened, but my mom changed her ticket to fly into Orlando a day earlier just the night before. She was booked on a senior fare and the reservationist only asked her for about $5 more in some kind of taxes. She couldn't believe it, and jumped at the chance! I couldn't believe it either, and we had a whole extra day for her to enjoy the parks with us. I don't know of many other airlines that will do the same. I have her booked to fly on American through Expedia for my niece's wedding, and I am thinking I may need to change the dates, but I don't think it will happen. I wish we would have booked on Southwest for that ticket, too. They are sooooo much easier to deal with. I also got credits for my husband and daughter for their Orlando flights when the price went down. I won't bother with another airline, though my husband's family will only fly on Northwest.

 

[magsmom]

Originally posted by GAIL HAYDEN
If you changed your flight, you won't get a refund. The only way you get a refund is if you rebook at the lower fare without a flight change.

That's exactly what I did - re-booked at the lower fare.

 

[magsmom]

Please let me clarify.

1. I am not getting any additional credit past 9/23/04. This is what I orignally asked for and am not entitled to, apparently, because I "mixed funds".

2. According to the 2nd rep, I am entitled to a $180.00 credit on my CC (just like Gail) once I fly in August because the rates went down and I did not change my flight - I only re-booked. If I get this credit on my CC I will be thrilled.

3. I did not mean to offend anyone in this post or the one prior. I needed to ask the right question to SWA, and at first did not.

 

[dkrause716]

I do know that when I re-booked at the lower fare I was told that the unused funds had to be used one year from my original booking date. They were very clear about that.

 

[CarolA]

I fly Delta weekly and they own Song.

Trust me, you would be in the same situation if not worse with Song LOL!

That said, your orginal post is TOO confusing for me to follow. Let's see.... in Sept 03 you booked a flight and for some reason wound up with an $80 credit.

You then used that credit to book a flight in August which I assume you are still going on. You then re-booked that flight with a new credit of $180. (Are you still doing this trip? Did it cost more then $80? )

You are now booking a flight in Oct and you have the $180 credit.


Now, having done this with SW I know that they can normally track multiple payment methods on the ticket. (For example, when I buy a fully refundable ticket using a credit and put the reamainder on my CC and then cancel they will refund the portion I put on my CC). SO....if you do indeed have two credits from different trips, get out your confirmation numbers on the credits and give them a call. Somehow I think that somewhere you have confused them just as much as you confused me. Give them ALL the numbers of ALL the confirmations and let them look up the payment methods. I bet they can work it out, if you don't call them names. Trust me, calling an airline employee a thief or SOB will pretty much assure you of getting nothing.

 

[disneyfor3]

I had a credit that was going to expire the beginning of June. When I called Southwest Customer Service they said they would give me a 6 month extension in travel voucher form. They sent me the vouchers and they expire December 31st so they even gave me an extra month on them. I was told that I could book our flight (which we have for September) and once I have completed travel I can mail the vouchers to them with confirmation that I have completed my travel and they would credit my credit card for the amount of the voucher.

I thought this was very nice of them and saved me from losing $180.00 credit. If I had booked my flight with another airline I probably wouldn't have had the $180.00 in the first place; since when I went to rebook the flight the lower rates weren't available for my time slot but when I called Southwest directly they gave me the credit anyway. So, with the $49 fares each way, we are going to Disney pretty darn cheaply!

 

[bg4]

This whole thread inspired me to re-book my flight and I learned some things.

Seems things changed at SWA in past couple of years. If you book thru internet you can only change reservation thru the on-line system. They used to do it by phone but that stopped.

Changing four reservations was very very easy

So now I have a $100 credit that will expire Mar 28, 05 - apparently one year from my original reservation. I called SWA and was told that this credit was not refundable because I changed category. Promotional to Internet.

I have to plans to fly before Mar 28, 05 so it is possible that this credit will be unusable, but will ask for a six month extension next March.