Cannot Apply Travel Funds

[roymoulder25]

I am a long time flyer of Southwest. I always rave about how great they are. I had to travel just this week using another airline other than Southwest and was so frustrated with their service. I was with 5 co-workers of mine and kept mentioning to them always fly Southwest if you can.

However, today I wish I hadn't mentioned that. My fiance and I are so excited about getting married this June. Due to some unexpected financial circumstances, we are no longer having the big wedding we had hoped. We are doing a very small destination wedding in Las Vegas with our closest friends and family. I travel frequently and had to cancel a flight a few months ago. I was able to get a travel credit and to save some money, use that credit for travelling to my wedding. Unfortunately my credit expires 45 days before my flight, and Southwest will not extend it for me until it is to close to the wedding to just be booking flight. This was a big part of our  budget and Southwest assures me there is nothing else I can do. I have never been this frustrated with a company that I raved so highly about. I feel like Southwest is stealing over $600.00 from me.

I urge anyone who is going to use Southwest to be careful and make sure your flight never gets cancelled no matter what the circumstance. As great as Southwest is, they will surely take advantage of you if your plans change. 

[franktravel]

Southwest is a great Airline with many perks like free bags, free seats, no change fees and refundable and non refundable tickets. Other Airlines do not offer half as much. 

Here is their nonrefundable policy:

"Travel Credit Forfeiture. Should a Passenger fail to apply the nonrefundable Ticket or travel credit toward the purchase of future travel within the eligibility period, the entire amount of the fare, including all taxes, security fees, and Passenger Facility Charges, will be forfeited."

If Southwest had canceled your flight you could have done this:

Delays or Involuntary Cancellations. If a Passenger’s scheduled transportation is canceled, terminated, or delayed before the Passenger has reached his final destination as a result of a flight cancellation, Carrier-caused missed connection, flight delay, or omission of a scheduled stop, Carrier will either transport the Passenger at no additional charge on another of Carrier’s flights, refund the fare for the unused transportation in accordance with the form of payment utilized for the Ticket, or provide a credit for such amount toward the purchase of future travel."

[sDrucker]

I am livid. I basically just experienced the same situation. Our funds expire March 28, 2018 and we would like to travel April 4, 2018. I have approx. $1500 in travel funds for my family of 5 and would like SouthwestAir to take my $100/person out of my travel funds to extend my funds for an additional 6month. According to Macy, the supervisor, they can not accept the $100 for extension until the day after my funds expire. ( Which would allow me 6 days to plan my trip with my family). I need to understand why I can not extend my funds for $100 today? Most people know their schedules and are aware when travel is possible with their work schedules and their kids school schedules. If they know today that they will not be able to use their funds prior to the expiration date, why won't  Southwest allow their customers to extend prior to expiration? The only reason I can think of, is that Southwest would rather their customers lose their travel fund and fill their seats with new paying customers. I will not stop here. I am so frustrated that I will make sure I post and repost all over social media that Southwest airlines do not care about their customers

[chgoflyer]

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@sDrucker wrote:

I am livid. I basically just experienced the same situation. Our funds expire March 28, 2018 and we would like to travel April 4, 2018. I have approx. $1500 in travel funds for my family of 5 and would like SouthwestAir to take my $100/person out of my travel funds to extend my funds for an additional 6month. According to Macy, the supervisor, they can not accept the $100 for extension until the day after my funds expire. ( Which would allow me 6 days to plan my trip with my family). I need to understand why I can not extend my funds for $100 today? Most people know their schedules and are aware when travel is possible with their work schedules and their kids school schedules. If they know today that they will not be able to use their funds prior to the expiration date, why won't  Southwest allow their customers to extend prior to expiration? The only reason I can think of, is that Southwest would rather their customers lose their travel fund and fill their seats with new paying customers. I will not stop here. I am so frustrated that I will make sure I post and repost all over social media that Southwest airlines do not care about their customers

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First, you essentially answered your own question. The only reason I can think of, is that Southwest would rather their customers lose their travel fund and fill their seats with new paying customers.

Second, please keep in mind what is actually the reality of the situation: You bought non-refundable tickets for air travel. Those tickets were for a specific flight, at a specific time, on a specific day. Then you, for whatever reason, did not travel on that specific flight at that specific time and date. You broke the contract. You paid money for a specific thing, and then you -- not Southwest -- failed to follow through and redeem that specific thing you bought.

You had purchased a non-refundable ticket, therefore you don't get a refund.

On some carriers, that would be it -- your funds would be gone. On some carriers, you might have been able to use the funds you paid towards new travel, but at the cost of a often hefty rebooking and/or change fee. (Change fees are as much as $250 per passenger.) On Southwest, you have one year in which to use those funds, without a change fee, towards new travel. After a year, they expire.

Then, Southwest even goes the extra mile and offers an unpublished policy allowing customers to recover some of their expired funds, within their own terms.

And you're livid?

Please understand that what you think you deserve and what you are actually entitled to within the terms and conditions of the financial agreement you entered into are two very different things.

Third: My suggestion would be to try contacting Customer Relations again, and instead of being angry and demanding, asking nicely if there is any way they can make a special exception for you, and reissue the funds prior to expiration (I have seem them do this previously in special cases). You may get lucky.

But if you continue to be angry and threaten attacks on social media I can guarantee you will be greeted only by a restating of the policy.  😉

[JosephOfNazaret]

Please improve/establish your/an on-line "Travel Fund" management system. 

As a seasoned software engineer, it should not be that difficult to implement a UI and underlying system for any or all Travel Funds to be automatically/digitally managed and applied. 

At the very least, the lack of an interface and forced manual(!) management of online travel funds, gives me, your customer, the impression that your "transfarency" policy comes with hidden and unnecessary burdens. 

Too, often, Southwest touts its unique industry leading refund policy, and uses that as an "excuse" for the headaches and difficulty this policy causes their customers. 

Your "transfarency" policy certainly is not as "transparency" as you claim.

The hot air of your marketing efforts cools off quite considerably soon after it hits your customers' face.

[venkath2002]

Same issue but with a twist! When we called up, they said $ 100 per confirmation no. rather than per ticket and asked me to call back to convert to voucher after it expires. I was travelling within 20 days of the expiry. But that does not matter here. Since we had two confirmation and was $ 200 bucks, instead of travelling during thanksgiving, we saved that for christmas holiday travel though it was only $ 200 forfeiture. Now when we actually called on to convert it to voucher, we lose $ 400. Utilized other airline for our thanksgiving travel since it was cheaper than SW. Guess what, we could have just utilized this travel fund. SW customer service mis-communicated costed me (not once but confirmed it twice)..

Certainly, my use of travel fund on SW would be my last. Certainly lost a A list member !

[chgoflyer]

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@venkath2002 wrote:

Same issue but with a twist! When we called up, they said $ 100 per confirmation no. rather than per ticket and asked me to call back to convert to voucher after it expires. I was travelling within 20 days of the expiry. But that does not matter here. Since we had two confirmation and was $ 200 bucks, instead of travelling during thanksgiving, we saved that for christmas holiday travel though it was only $ 200 forfeiture. Now when we actually called on to convert it to voucher, we lose $ 400. Utilized other airline for our thanksgiving travel since it was cheaper than SW. Guess what, we could have just utilized this travel fund. SW customer service mis-communicated costed me (not once but confirmed it twice)..

Certainly, my use of travel fund on SW would be my last. Certainly lost a A list member !

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I'm not sure I follow exactly what you're saying. It seems odd to me that an A-Lister (25 paid flights per year) wouldn't have had an opportunity to use travel funds prior to their expiration. But maybe I don't understand what you're saying?

In case you're confused about how it works: 

Once expired, the fee to reissue travel funds as a voucher is $100 per confirmation number / passenger.

If a passenger has multiple travel funds under multiple confirmation numbers, they can combine them via a "dummy" booking prior to expiration. This will generate a single confirmation number.

Sorry if this is too late to be of any good to you.