Just returned to San Diego from New Orleans. My son received a nice academic award from Tulane, so my wife, son and I were visiting the school. I am a mildly dyslexic, middle-income man. I booked our flight on-line with Southwest in January. Southwest’s website as it relates to Departure and Return Dates is not intuitive to me. As a result, I erroneously scheduled our return for Tuesday, March 14th instead of Tuesday, February 14th. I realized my error when I tried to check in on February 13th. I immediately called Customer Relations and was told by a representative that they totally understood how I made the honest mistake but that I must pay the now current fair to change our flight. The total cost $1249.83. That’s what I make in a full week after tax! This is a huge financial burden. To add insult to injury, the two legs of the flight home both had less than 50% of the seats occupied. It was an honest mistake… why does Southwest think it is necessary to exploit a family in distress that is stranded in New Orleans and needs to get home? I wrote Charles Schwab once (like me… he is dyslexic) lauding him for reinventing an industry. His response to me "I have always believed that conducting business with integrity and putting the customer's needs first are both pragmatic and down-to-earth. When the customer wins, we all win." Southwest could use a lesson in pragmatism from Mr. Schwab.
