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How do I upgrade an existing reservation?

tparrent
Explorer C

Looks like I would just miss Companion Pass this year due to changes in my travel schedule.

 

To make up the gap I thought I would have to take a couple flights to nowhere. The money spent would be worth it but the last thing I need this year is more time in airports!

 

As I still have quite a few flights booked before year end, I figured I could just upgrade a couple from WGA to Business Select. That would give me the qualifying points I need without me having to get on additional flights.

 

I can't figure out how to upgrade an existing reservation. I could cancel a trip and then rebook it but some of my flights are sold out and I really don't want to change the schedule. I know there has to be an easier way but I haven't been able to find it.

 

One thing (I think) I learned this year is that I should not book roundtrip flights. My schedule changes frequently and cancelling only the return portion of a trip creates frequent flier problems becuase the miles don't seem to get credited until I "complete" the original trip with a new return that could be months in the future (my travel changes often lead me to have to book on other airlines in the near term). I suppose the easiest way around this is to simply book every leg as a one way. Bit of a hassle but seems ot offer more flexibility - especially when I need to cancel the outbound ticket but want to keep the return.

 

Typing all of this makes me realize that I just travel too much!

 

Thanks for any help

5 REPLIES 5

Re: How do I upgrade an existing reservation?

DancingDavidE
Aviator A
Solution

@tparrent wrote:

Looks like I would just miss Companion Pass this year due to changes in my travel schedule.

 

To make up the gap I thought I would have to take a couple flights to nowhere. The money spent would be worth it but the last thing I need this year is more time in airports!

 

As I still have quite a few flights booked before year end, I figured I could just upgrade a couple from WGA to Business Select. That would give me the qualifying points I need without me having to get on additional flights.

 

I can't figure out how to upgrade an existing reservation. I could cancel a trip and then rebook it but some of my flights are sold out and I really don't want to change the schedule. I know there has to be an easier way but I haven't been able to find it.

 

One thing (I think) I learned this year is that I should not book roundtrip flights. My schedule changes frequently and cancelling only the return portion of a trip creates frequent flier problems becuase the miles don't seem to get credited until I "complete" the original trip with a new return that could be months in the future (my travel changes often lead me to have to book on other airlines in the near term). I suppose the easiest way around this is to simply book every leg as a one way. Bit of a hassle but seems ot offer more flexibility - especially when I need to cancel the outbound ticket but want to keep the return.

 

Typing all of this makes me realize that I just travel too much!

 

Thanks for any help


In reverse order:

 

  1. Several of us on this community prefer booking one-way trips regularly for ease of managing changes/cancelations/modifications. You are absolutely describing a set of travel habits that I think would benefit from using one-way flights. 
  2. I think you are doing it correctly - go to your flights and then "change" and you should have the option to buy a new ticket, including moving up to BS fares.
  3. As you noted, some may be sold out - in that case you won't be able to make the BS upgrade unless you cancel and rebook for an alternate time. My suggestion would be to cancel and rebook a BS flight for one of the next best times, then monitor the flight daily including the same day to try and get back to your original schedule. New this year if you change a BS ticket it retains refundability. The original travel funds portion would remain non-refundable as travel funds.
  4. If you have several options, hopefully you can find a few that are still open to upgrade, and allow for your flexible schedule, you should plan to overshoot by a few thousand points in case one of your last trips gets postponed, if that's likely.
  5. In my opinion both A-list and companion pass would be worthy of a reasonably priced "points run" by mid-December if you aren't on track to make it.
Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: How do I upgrade an existing reservation?

dfwskier
Aviator A

Just an aside, but remember that if you upgrade from WGA to BS the non refundable WGA funds are added to more funds and the entire new total becomes non refundable with an expiration date of the WGA funds that were used. It sounds like you travel a lot, so that is probably not going to be an issue, but I did want to bring up the topic..

 

I always try to cancel and then re book.

Re: How do I upgrade an existing reservation?

chgoflyer
Aviator A

The easiest way to upgrade is here:

 

https://www.southwest.com/html/air/products/business-select.html

 

Also, when you use WGA travel funds towards a BS or AT ticket, the WGA portion remains non-refundable, but the BS/AT portion is refundable. (The situation dfwskier describes only applies to WGA bookings.)

Re: How do I upgrade an existing reservation?

tparrent
Explorer C

Thanks for the answers everyone.

 

I called to upgrade (because the online process seemed open to errors). Even doing this live, I was unable to simply upgrade and had to cancel the tickets and rebook. This casued me to lose my preferred flight as it was fully booked. At least I was able to soak up a bunch of my SWA credits (is everyone else incredibly annoyed that you have to keep track of all the confirmation numbers?)

 

This will put me 5,000 closer. Still need a few good flights to go over the top and I'm not sure how many credit card points will post within the next two cycles.

Re: How do I upgrade an existing reservation?

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@tparrent wrote:

I was unable to simply upgrade and had to cancel the tickets and rebook. This casued me to lose my preferred flight as it was fully booked. At least I was able to soak up a bunch of my SWA credits (is everyone else incredibly annoyed that you have to keep track of all the confirmation numbers?)

 


Keep an eye on it periodically depending how stronly you want the original time slot. You already paid the higher rate, so swapping flight times isn't a big deal if all of the flights have the same BS fare price. There will often be a couple of cancelations right after the 24-hour mark when people are reminded of their check-ins and forgot to make changes. That won't matter to you, since you get 1-15 anyway you can change last minute.

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.