Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

lam19
Explorer C

I just tried to book a flight and tried to use all my travel funds that expire Mar 2020 but received an error message saying that some of my funds could not be applied according to the rules.

 

These funds come from 3 different confirmation #'s.  How much money can you actually apply towards a flight?  How many confirmation #'s can you actually use?

6 REPLIES 6

Re: Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

SWDigits
Aviator A
Solution
You should be able to use three forms of payment, here is the reference:

https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/purchasing-and-refunds/index-pol.html

Customer | Home airport DCA

Re: Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

bec102896
Aviator A

Do the 3 travel funds cover the whole cost of the flight? If not you can only use 2 travel funds plus a credit card. In total you can only use 3 forms of payment per reservation. Each travel fund counts as a form of payment.

 

Hope this helps!

Blake 

Re: Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

gsking
Aviator C

Are you sure that one of the funds didn't originate from a refund on an earlier flight?

Re: Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

chgoflyer
Aviator A

One other consideration is that funds can only be used by the original passenger(s).

 

If you are applying a fund from a cancelled flight that originally included two passengers, for example, to a new flight for only one of those passengers, you'll only be allowed to use the portion of the travel fund belonging to that one passenger.

 

In any case, a work-around for the limitation on travel funds as multiple forms of payment is to combine funds by booking a "dummy" flight, and then immediately cancelling that flight (and having the 911 fee and any taxes refunded back to the credit card). Do this as many times as necessary until you've combined all the funds, then use the combined fund to book your desired flight.

 

Note: If you do go this route, be very careful to take note all of the funds' expiration dates. Whenever you apply funds to any new booking, the resulting itinerary will take on the earliest expiration date of any funds used. Make sure all the dates will work for your desired itinerary before you combine. In some cases it may be better to forgo a specific fund if using it will cause the expiration date to be too soon.

 

Hope this helps!

Re: Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

1074410094
Explorer C

I bought a ticket to Sacramento from Kansas City for $199 for Dec. 24 2019 flight and used my travel voucher of $9.99 which expires Jan 9, 2020. I paid the rest using a credit card for $189. I am so glad the ticket was cheap because if if it was say $300 anThe ticket went down by $18, then $22 next. So I was happy I am saving $40. When I checked the website for my travel funds, the $40 savings was not there and they said since I used the 49.99 travel fund and mixed it with my cash, whatever savings I got should be used at the expiration date of the old travel fund I used. That policy is ridiculous. Glad I lost only $40 so I really did not save anything. I thought Southwest advertises no charge for cancellation and you get a travel voucher but reall not worth it if your tavel voucher is soon to expire. If I have cancelled the entire flight then I need to use the travel funds within the expiration date of the old travel fund i used in booking which means Jan. 9 in this situation. I will start shopping around for other airlines than using Sputhwest all the time. This company is a cheat.

Re: Unused Travel Funds - How much can you use?

dfwskier
Aviator A

Sorry that this happened to you.

 

However, Southwest's policy on the matter is quite clear -- and not hidden -- if you mix

payment methods to pay for a ticket, and one of them has an expiration date, then all funds

used to pay for that ticket adopt that expiration date.

 

You may think other airlines are better, but for the most part, they'll take $200 of your money off the top whenever you change or cancel a flight.

 

Southwest doesn't, but as you learned, you have to pay attention to the rules.