Early Bird Didn't Work - Can't get Refund by Calling

[skorpad]

Apart from the new reservation system taking away functionality and making you call in to talk to someone for stuff that used to be available online.....I have another silly more manual work issue.

I buy 7 tickets on points.  On 2 of the tickets I buy Early Bird check-in.  And I have to do this via phone instead of the website (see previous functionality that is now gone).

I check in my 7 passengers, 5 are under the age of 14, and one of my Early Bird's is B 54.  She is actually later than 2 others I checked in.  Obviously, this is a mistake.

I call Southwest, talk to an agent, she sees the mistake and tells me "Sorry, I can't do anything.  You need to go back online and ask for a refund."

I ask "I am talking to customer service, why can't you issue a refund?"

The response "Sorry, I can't.  You have to do that online."

This makes zero sense.

[skorpad]

And....can't find where to submit for a refund on a Early Bird Check-In via the website so now I've called back in and left a message on the A-List hotline.

The only option I had for a refund was to cancel my flight first...

Again, this makes zero sense.  If I'm taking time to talk with someone, why can't they issue the refund on something that was Southwest's fault.

Hopefully I get a call back in the morning.

[skorpad]

Got a call back this morning.  Got it refunded.  The agent told me it was likely something I did and that is why we got B54 for Early Bird.  Seemed odd that I got blamed for it. 

Last three weeks at Southwest:

 1 -took away functionality from their customer via the website

 2 -force customers to call in to make any changes on booked tickets

 3 - offer EarlyBird and when it doesn't work, they make me call in twice and send 1 email to get it refunded, and I get blamed for it.

Seems like things are going backwards at Southwest.  What use to be easy and friendly is now getting very manual and hard.

[Winnie]

We also paid for Early Bird Check in. It worked for two legs of the flight out to AZ from FL but when we did our ticket online we had B54 also. I spent two hours of our vacation on the phone trying to get this fixed the night before our flight home. No one could fix it. Before ur flight the next day we were rocked to purchase two mor Early Bird at $40.00 each. So our over $850.00 tickets (2) were now over $900.00. When we got to Indianapolis (yes on the way to FL...crazy) I was told to talk to the Customer Care Agent. 

The Customer Care Agent informed me that just because I purchased Early Bird the airline didn't guarantee Early boarding. Sounds like a scam to me. Just before we were to board, I told my story of woe to the gate agent and he immediately wrote us out new tickets. So it can be done if they want to. This was our second time flying Southwest and it will be our last! We get free bags with Delta credit card and we know where we will be sitting when we purchase the ticket.