SWA glitch to be aware of

[clanmcculloch]

I love SWA. This isn't so much of a complaint as me wanting to make people aware of what I encountered last night when trying to change my flights.

I booked my August flights back in January. A couple weeks ago, a lot of people received email updates of their flight confirmations. Many of us who received these had minor changes to our arrival times as it seems that SWA extended some flight times at least on paper. Like everybody else, I assumed this had absolutely no impact at all on my reservation.

I was wrong.

The SWA reservation system has a little "feature" where if your reservation is touched in any way other than through the website, the reservation can now only be modified by calling in to customer service. This minor time change it seems was enough to make my reservation unchangeable via the website. That put quite the monkey wrench in my ability to update my flight using web only fares. I had to call in to the toll free number and wait on hold for almost 45 minutes to talk to an actual person. The person confirmed the reason that I couldn't update my reservation on the website and had to get special permission to give me the web only rate for my new flight. You can't normally get web only rates by phone. Because the change that happed wasn't in any way initiated by me her manager approved this one time only application of a web only rate by phone. I wasn't about to argue with the concept of one time only at that point since I don't forsee needing another change but I will argue that point if by some weird chance I do have a reason to make another change.

Anyway, it all worked out and this didn't in any way make me dislike SWA (though I sure wish they had more agents; I hate being on hold) but I thought people should at least be aware that this happened as I'm sure this can affect others.

 

[IggyLans]

Thank you. That's good to know.

 

[candy0730]

Thank you for posting this. I have been on hold with SW for 25 minutes so far because it won't let me change my reservation. Like you, our flight was changed by about 5 minutes so that must be why I cannot change my flight online. I am also trying to take advantage of the low web only fare.

At least I know why this is happening and am now prepared to state my case.

Wish me luck.

 

[IggyLans]

Thank you for posting this. I have been on hold with SW for 25 minutes so far because it won't let me change my reservation. Like you, our flight was changed by about 5 minutes so that must be why I cannot change my flight online. I am also trying to take advantage of the low web only fare.

At least I know why this is happening and am now prepared to state my case.

Wish me luck.

Any luck?

 

[candy0730]

Whew - it took 45 minutes to get a person on the phone but it was worth the wait. I explained the problem to the rep and pointed out the flight change. The SW rep knew right away about the "glitch". He was able to cancel my reservation then I had to re-book using the travel funds that were there from the cancelled flight. I was a little nervous that once I submitted I would be told that the flight price went up but that didn't happen. I was able to get 3 seats for $80 each.

As always SW is awesome!

 

[RumpleMom]

Thank you for posting this information. It's exactly what I needed.

Just got off the phone with Soutwest. All is well.

I love Southwest's customer service.