Warning: Changes to Southwest web site

[JandD Mom]

Hello all,

I wanted to warn those of you who, like me, have been able to use Southwest's web site to rebook your tickets to get more favorable rates and use the credits. There are many problems with the web site, and as a result, the wait times to get through to an agent are incredibly long. The agent I spoke to acknowledged that they are having a hard time getting the new system to process the credits and work the way it should. Here are the problems:

1. Every time you re-book, it creates a separate entry for EVERY person on your reservation. So if you have a family of 4, and your tickets go down $10 per person, when you rebook, you will keep the same booking number for the credit. However, when you go to put that number in for ticketless travel funds on the web site, it will come up as 4 separate tickets. The problem? There is a limit on the web site of how many of these will be accepted. I don't remember the number but I think the rep told me it was 6. So if you rebook twice because your tickets go down $10 twice, you will then have 8 separate entries. Therefore, you won't be able to use all of the credits on your next booking.

The caveat to this is that you might be able to use the credits if you split apart everyone's bookings. But that means having to do the check-in process more than once.

2. DO NOT CANCEL YOUR TICKET, unless you get a rep on the phone. In the past you could just start a booking, cancel the old ticket before finalizing the booking, and the apply the entire newly-cancelled ticket to the new booking (I have done this when changing plans, adding people, etc). The problem with this is that the old ticket number could come up as 8, or 12 different entries which the new booking won't take.

I tried to do this today and the new booking would only take some of my credits, the web site told me I owed money (which I didn't because I still have $140 left over) and it would not allow me to enter a credit card to pay the difference.

The result, I waited 25 minutes for the SW help folks to call me back (they are so swamped they ask you to leave your phone number for a call back), and then the gal who called me back couldn't fix the problem. She put me on hold while she was calling the Dallas help desk which was swamped.

Since I was stuck waiting with no ticket home from Orlando, I rebooked my family on 2 separate reservations, which I was trying to avoid doing.

As A result I made 2 new bookings, I was able to use the credits, and now I have $140 credit left over. But I don't know how many actual entries this would break down into when I try to book again.

So my advice is, don't mess around with the southwest web site until they solve all of these problems. Get an agent on the phone first!

 

[JandD Mom]

I just wanted to clarify something since my last message was long:

I know there has always been a limit to the number of ticketless travel fund credits you could use on a booking. Today, I was trying to use only 2 travel credits. However, because of the new computer program, these 2 credits were processed by southwest as 14 separate credit entries (because I had re-booked my tickets several times as the prices went down. The system won't allow 14 credits so that's where I had the problem.

 

[Lewisc]

It's been posted that these changes allow Southwest to charge $50 for each TTF credit you want to extend. Previously you only had to pay one $50 fee, all the credits were combined under one number.

You said you have 14 different credit entires, that would imply a charge of $700. You wouldn't pay that much, any credit of under $50 would simply expire without value.

We probably need to plan on either using, or losing, any TTF credits within one year.

 

[JandD Mom]

It's been posted that these changes allow Southwest to charge $50 for each TTF credit you want to extend. Previously you only had to pay one $50 fee, all the credits were combined under one number.

I never knew you were allowed to extend a credit. I know they allow you to pay $50 to extend a free ticket. When did they start allowing you to extend credits too?

In speaking to the SW rep, she indicated to me that the system is not intended to work in that way - ie, splitting up all of the credits. However, that was one, over-worked rep talking. I would not be surprised at all if that's EXACTLY what SW intends.

 

[KSDisneyDad]

I agree that the breaking up of credits can be a pain. However, SW still doesn't charge a fee for changing your tickets and they let you take the difference as a credit. I don't think any of the major airlines will let you do that.

I was able to rebook our tickets this summer and saved enough to fly my son to visit his Grandparents this summer. I had to really think about how to redo it because of the use of the multiple credits, but was able to figure it out.

And I posted on another thread today about a wonderful experience I had with SW yesterday. I was confirming all of my reservations for our upcoming trip and discovered I had inadvertently booked two tickets incorrectly. I was literally panicked as on the SW website, it would have cost me an extra $500 to rebook the flight for this weekend. I called Southwest directly and the extremely nice agent helped me fix my error at no cost!!!! Again, what other airline would help a customer fix a mistake that wasn't the airline's fault?

We always fly Southwest to Florida -- low fares, no baggage fees, no change fees and credits given if you rebook at a lower price!!!

 

[MarkinNM]

We always fly Southwest to Florida -- low fares, no baggage fees, no change fees and credits given if you rebook at a lower price!!!

AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I too had the same issue as with my family of 4, the rates dropped two other times, so I rebooked for the cheaper times. When I tried to book a res for my mom and use the credit, yup 8 showed up!! I called SW and the very nice lady fixed it and was able combine them!

 

[btwitkin]

I got a $204 credit with SW yesterday just by rebooking my exact same flights!!!! SW is awesome!

 

[JandD Mom]

I agree with everyone that SW has a definite advantage to other airlines due to the lack of baggage fee and the ability to rebook without fees. But my original intent in posting this was to let everyone know that due to a change in the web site, the procedure has changed for using credits. What used to be a 30 second task to book something with credits, has now turned into an ordeal. I am on hold with a SW reservation agent as I speak, and have been waiting for 30 minutes for her to be able to combine my credits so I can book a flight. She and her help desk can't figure out how to do it.

What I am trying to do is use up 1st a credit for $45 that expires next month. Then I want to use the next $55 from a credit that expires later. The web site is trying to make me do it in reverse order and the reps can't seem to figure out how to correct it.

So I will still fly SW. However, everyone needs to know that the process of rebooking and actually USING the new credits, isn't as easy as it was a couple of weeks ago.

 

[TJA]

OP ~ I ran into the same issue. We've been flying SW for years (and will continue to fly SW....) but last week I was so excited to use my 4 credits but each was divided up into multiple amounts so I ended up only using 2 of the credits and I have a real mess as far as even booking my kids separately. Luckly the credits I could save expire in 2010 and I can use them for our next flights.

 

[ptrbryant]

Same thing happened to me for the first time last week. We had credits for 2 rebookings for lower fares for our family of 3. I was told you can only use 4 "types of payment" per reservation and each individual credit counts as 1. I know we'll take at least 1 more trip before the credits expire and didn't want the hassle (re:non-consecutive boarding passes, etc.) of individual bookings, so used 1/2 my credits and will use the other 1/2 later.

Before, there was no limit on how many credits you could use.

Karla B.

 

[KarlaG4Kids]

Hey there. I sure appreciate the heads up on the changes. We LOVE SW and the ability to make a good ticket prices great. We also love no baggage fees and the great customer service. I encourage anyone I know to book with SW whenever they can. I really appreciate knowing about their changes so we can allow for them. DIS & SW ROCK!

 

[KSDisneyDad]

I agree with everyone that SW has a definite advantage to other airlines due to the lack of baggage fee and the ability to rebook without fees. But my original intent in posting this was to let everyone know that due to a change in the web site, the procedure has changed for using credits. What used to be a 30 second task to book something with credits, has now turned into an ordeal. I am on hold with a SW reservation agent as I speak, and have been waiting for 30 minutes for her to be able to combine my credits so I can book a flight. She and her help desk can't figure out how to do it.

What I am trying to do is use up 1st a credit for $45 that expires next month. Then I want to use the next $55 from a credit that expires later. The web site is trying to make me do it in reverse order and the reps can't seem to figure out how to correct it.

So I will still fly SW. However, everyone needs to know that the process of rebooking and actually USING the new credits, isn't as easy as it was a couple of weeks ago.

Were you successful last night in using all of your credits?

I agree that the new system isn't as good as the old. I was just trying to point out that even the new system is better than most other airlines.

I've historically booked each leg of my trip separately on SW to make it easier to take advantage of savings. Sometimes one leg will go down in price, but not the other. I've also found that although it's a pain that if you book each member of your party separately, you can get sometimes get additional savings as SW charges you the highest ticket price for each member of your party. For example, if there are two lower priced tickets remaining on a flight but you need 5 tickets, they will charge you the higher price (generally $10 more) for all 5 versus just the last 3.

For me to utilize all of my credits when I rebooked, I had to person separately with each leg of the trip being separately. When you do that, it works out about the same with all of the way the new system works.

Another alternative is just to go to Travel Tools/Change Air Reservations. It will transfer all of your credits used to purchase your existing ticket over to your new ticket and let you apply a new one if needed.

And if all else fails, just call an agent. The only downside is that they can't always book you with an internet-only special. Yes, it's complicated but if you know the system it can work to your advantage.

 

[PatMcDuck]

I also STILL love SW, but I ran into another smaller issue.

I had to rebook flights PHL-MDW(midway). I owed $60 more $$ after applying a small credit. I could not get it to take my payment, I tried 4 different times.

I also had to call SW. They said because I paid with Paypal the first time, I had to use a different form of payment for the rebooking payment. WEIRD. I had tried using both PP and CC, they said it was in the cache as PP, I had to shut off my computer and redo it using a CC not linked to my PP account.

 

[JandD Mom]

Were you successful last night in using all of your credits?

I agree that the new system isn't as good as the old. I was just trying to point out that even the new system is better than most other airlines.

I've historically booked each leg of my trip separately on SW to make it easier to take advantage of savings. Sometimes one leg will go down in price, but not the other. I've also found that although it's a pain that if you book each member of your party separately, you can get sometimes get additional savings as SW charges you the highest ticket price for each member of your party. For example, if there are two lower priced tickets remaining on a flight but you need 5 tickets, they will charge you the higher price (generally $10 more) for all 5 versus just the last 3.

For me to utilize all of my credits when I rebooked, I had to person separately with each leg of the trip being separately. When you do that, it works out about the same with all of the way the new system works.

Another alternative is just to go to Travel Tools/Change Air Reservations. It will transfer all of your credits used to purchase your existing ticket over to your new ticket and let you apply a new one if needed.

And if all else fails, just call an agent. The only downside is that they can't always book you with an internet-only special. Yes, it's complicated but if you know the system it can work to your advantage.

Hi there,

I was actualy on the phone with SW for a total of 45 minutes. I know that's no exaggeration because my phone has a timer on it and it tells you when you hang up how long you were on the phone.

The problem is that there was 1 SINGLE one way ticket and for some reason, SW broke the credit from that ticket into 3 separate credits. Thus a $45 credit was 3 credits, and I had to get another $55 from a flight reservations that was for 3 people and was broken up into 4 or 5 credits. It was a puzzle to get SW to figure it out. As a result, they could not use $9 of the credit that's going to expire next month. Instead, that money was taken from a credit that expires next year. I did not want to do that.

As to your comment about changing the air reservation, that doesn't work the same way any more. That's what I was trying to do. When I failed, I did call a reservation agent, and that's why I was on the phone 45 minutes.

The SW rep suggested I call the Dallas customer service number Monday to complain. She gave me the number and I can post it if anyone needs it. She said the problem isn't that their software will only let me use 4 credits (that was always their rule) but rather, the fact that their system took my single, one way ticket, and broke it into 3 separate credits. The agent said that's not right and if enough people call to complain, they will fix the problem.

So please, join me and call to fix the problem.