Southwest

[clearyds]

Received a 50000 offer and have booked my tickets. Can I really cancel the flight and get my points back?? No penalty? I am looking into trip insurance and want to know if I need to include air cost. Thank everyone!! I wouldn't have known to grab the offer when it came to me without this board !!

 

[Couchy]

Yes... you will get all your points back. You can switch/cancel up until departure time. If you book now and a lower price point comes later for that flight they will give you the difference in points if you re book under new cost.

I love Southwest

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Received a 50000 offer and have booked my tickets. Can I really cancel the flight and get my points back?? No penalty? I am looking into trip insurance and want to know if I need to include air cost. Thank everyone!! I wouldn't have known to grab the offer when it came to me without this board !!

Rapid Reward policies are easily found on Southwest's website. It would be helpful to read them so you don't end up making any costly errors.

 

[Hofmanns4]

Rapid Reward policies are easily found on Southwest's website. It would be helpful to read them so you don't end up making any costly errors.

I understand what you are saying, but also understand why the OP is asking. I also read the website and just could not believe it was true. It seems so customer friendly that I also figured there was some catch.

OP, I recently cancelled 3 flights and then rebooked cheaper ones for another day a couple days later with NO issues! All the points from the first booking went right back into the account. It does seem too good to be true, but it is true!

 

[PatMcDuck]

I have about 32,000 points, and sometimes I use them to book possible trips, just to lock in a good fare. If I cancel the trip, i get the points back. Or, if it stays the same or drops, I may cancel the point reservation, and rebook and pay $$. If it goes up, I just use the point reservation.

 

[sweetdana]

Not only can you cancel, you can also get a "refund" if points go down.. and switch flights even in the same day if the 2 hour early flight is now cheaper.




Honestly I signed up for the 50K miles and ONLY did it for the free flights, I have used Delta for yrs. and pretty much solely Delta.. After being able to get 2 different "refunds" and switched flights (once going out and once coming back), I WILL NEVER use another carrier again, unless it really became WAY outta wack no price. I would pay prolly a 10% premium to use SW

I got 50K miles and it orig got me almost 4 RT tickets DTW- MCO.. I ended up buying like 100$ in points. and after refunds ect I have about 9K left now to use in Dec. THRILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLED with 72 font with SW.. so much better than the delta making a party of 4.. including my 1 yr old sit in a different rows.. nothing like seeing your 1 yr old from 2 rows back cry.

 

[ScottOKW2K]

In addition to all the points already brought up - one useful tip is to book your destination and return trips separately instead of as a single round trip. I did this for our trip to the World over the New Years. Our departure date was firm, but we were not sure exactly what our return date would be. We actually had enough points to book several flight choices, and I cancelled what was not needed once plans were firmed up.

Another suggestion I gleaned from my trip - Southwest will allow 2 checked bags per person for free. If you are using Magical Express take advantage of this and indicate that you are going to use 2 per person. I only put one in and we ended up checking 4 bags for the three of us. Because of that I had to go to baggage claim once we arrived in Orlando which cost us about an hour. I also plan the next time we do this to use one suitcase or box for non-perishable food items (bread, cereal, etc.) I did bread, peanut butter and jelly in one of the suitcases last trip and it came through no problem - though I did cocoon them securely to prevent any crush damage. This was the best of both worlds, as I purchased these items at home at a normal price and Disney + Southwest delivered them to my room for free!