Southwest's Mass Cancellation Today

[jrsharp21]

I was finally able to cancel my flight online.

 

[Rory607]

Has anyone tried to cancel their reservations willingly but not able to do so? I am flying out to WDW for Marathon Weekend next week. We originally were booked on SW, but decided to avoid them right now and booked tickets on United. Now I am trying to cancel our tickets online and the website keeps popping up errors when trying to cancel. Tried to call the main customer service number and its not even operable.

Not trying to cancel, but we got caught up in the flight cancellation fiasco and I am trying to locate our luggage. I tried calling all day yesterday and got nowhere. I started calling again this morning around 7:30. I got a busy signal a few times, was able to connect and then got disconnected a few times. But finally I was on hold for 15-20 minutes and then an actual live person answered and was able to help me! So my advice is call early and keep trying if you have to call.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I think Southwest will do refunds, but I'd wait a while until they can get their system up & running.

Airlines in this country must offer refunds for cancelled flights as per law. They are likely to try and find you another flight (which is often what the customer wants anyway) and can offer vouchers for future flights (perhaps at a greater value than the current tickets), but if the customer wants a refund they can get their money back.

 

[Tiggerette]

After my flight was cancelled for the third time, I gave up trying to fly with southwest for this trip. I was never notified 2 of the 3 cancellations, the one notice of the cancellation came though about 6 hours after the flight was supposed to take off. I stayed and talked with the gate agent to get a refund and just end the whole cycle of trying to fly with them. (There wasn't even a flight available before my planned return date!) Other airlines are not having the severity of these cancellations, though I am seeing a handful. If I had to travel by a certain date, I would never take Southwest. In taking another airline, I still would give a day or two wiggle room for arrival.

Of course, not traveling to be with family sucked. But also what sucked for us was the emotional roller coaster of traveling- not-traveling- traveling- not-traveling.... and so on. Ugh. That rollercoaster will be long remembered, and we have now made Southwest into a verb. "You've been Southwested!" "Your plans were Southwested!"

Lastly, I make a huge separation between front line personnel, and executives in policy/infrastructure/capacity decisions. I thanked the gate staff fo their help, for their long-day efforts. Management, however, has my definite ire. This cataclysmic meltdown isn't new. I've had to travel a fair amount, and these problems (because they over-furloughed and under-hired, because they didn't keep up their fleet, because the systems were antiquated, unable to keep up with rapid adjustments) became more evident as more people traveled. A company that goes into complete meltdown like this reveals deficiencies in its operational decisions. I look forward to a DoT audit, and I hope that SW front line employees get a raise for sticking with this company, or get better pay from some other airline carrier.

 

[deltadisney]

I was finally able to cancel my flight online.

were you able to obtain a refund or just credit?

 

[jrsharp21]

were you able to obtain a refund or just credit?

Credit. My flights had not been canceled yet. I just chose to be on the safe side and booked alternate flights with United and canceled the SW flights.

Interesting though. My wife has a flight from Orlando to Houston on 1/7. She already received a notice that her flight may be delayed or canceled and to keep monitoring her flight status for updates. She is now exploring different options.

 

[gorjus121]

Interesting though. My wife has a flight from Orlando to Houston on 1/7. She already received a notice that her flight may be delayed or canceled and to keep monitoring her flight status for updates. She is now exploring different options

After reading everyone's experiences the last few days, I'm glad we rescheduled our trip using SW to a later date and didn't keep trying. Even if we made it down to Orlando, we likely would have had trouble getting home.

 

[deltadisney]

Credit. My flights had not been canceled yet. I just chose to be on the safe side and booked alternate flights with United and canceled the SW flights.

Interesting though. My wife has a flight from Orlando to Houston on 1/7. She already received a notice that her flight may be delayed or canceled and to keep monitoring her flight status for updates. She is now exploring different options.

Thanks. How long does the credit apply? Thought I saw on website it mentioned 30 days. I was hoping it would be at least a year?

We were set to fly out on 12/29 to Atlanta, stay the night in Atlanta, and fly into MCO on 12/30. I received notice this morning that the 12/29 was cancelled but not the 12/30. Guess I get a refund for the one cancelled and a credit for the other. Problem is, we don’t travel often so a 30 day voucher doesn’t really do us any good. I’ve already booked with another carrier.

 

[Tiggerette]

Credit. My flights had not been canceled yet. I just chose to be on the safe side and booked alternate flights with United and canceled the SW flights.

Interesting though. My wife has a flight from Orlando to Houston on 1/7. She already received a notice that her flight may be delayed or canceled and to keep monitoring her flight status for updates. She is now exploring different options.

I advised my father the same so he can get home next week. He's due to fly on 1/3, and I think a difference between this week and next week could be less people flying by then. But even with less people taxing "the system," it doesn't change the organizational fubar underlying this mess.

Regarding credit vs. voucher.... if Southwest has cancelled your flight, you will have recourse to receive full refund on the method of payment. For example, I paid for my flights in points. I cannot ask for cash in lieu of points. If I had paid via cash (credit card) I would receive refund to that method of payment.

Also, this trip I booked round trip (usually I do only one-ways to make it easier to adjust as needed). I received a full refund for the entire booking, both ways. Because I couldn't get to my destination via SW, it would be impossible for me to return via SW. So for the folks who booked round trip, and are cancelling the whole trip, you should be able to advocate for full refund. I agree with the folx who also leveraged the credit card dispute option if SW doesn't immediately initiate a refund upon your request, based on your impacted travel itinerary.

 

[Gentry2004]

Thanks. How long does the credit apply? Thought I saw on website it mentioned 30 days. I was hoping it would be at least a year?

We were set to fly out on 12/29 to Atlanta, stay the night in Atlanta, and fly into MCO on 12/30. I received notice this morning that the 12/29 was cancelled but not the 12/30. Guess I get a refund for the one cancelled and a credit for the other. Problem is, we don’t travel often so a 30 day voucher doesn’t really do us any good. I’ve already booked with another carrier.

As of this summer, Southwest credits do not expire.
https://community.southwest.com/t5/Blog/Introducing-Flight-Credits-that-Don-t-Expire/ba-p/146495

 

[GPC0321]

Dealt with this trying to get home from Disney. We were scheduled to fly out Monday morning (the 26th). We were meeting Mears at 4:55 AM to be at MCO for an 8:15 flight. At 4:30 AM I looked at the app to check our boarding positions and saw "Canceled" on the flight. I never got a notification about this at all...just saw it for myself.

I wasn't aware of the huge issue Southwest was having and when they offered to change the flight to the next morning (27th), I agreed to do that and immediately booked a night at the MCO Hyatt. (Bless the Hyatt and the wonderful woman at the desk, she was able to get us right into our room as soon as we got there (6:00 AMish).

About 5:00 PM on the 26th we got the alert that our SW flight on the morning of the 27th was canceled. By then we knew there was a huge issue (no denying that looking at the Southwest ticketing and check-in at MCO and the number of people camped out on benches, chairs, and the floor. News cameras setting up, filming, etc.

Realizing SW was not an option, we luckily found three seats on a Delta flight home.
There was a couple on our same flight that had been originally booked on SW. They were trying to get to Baltimore. They had to take our flight to Raleigh and were getting a rental car there to drive home.

What a mess. Southwest *really* needs to learn from this and make some major improvements.