Working in Reservations, we get a lot of your typical calls: making a reservation, changing a reservation, seeing what's available, so on and so forth. Here's some tips that may help you when booking or changing your next Southwest reservation:
The Internet and the Modern Person
1. Our confirmation numbers never contain the number 0 or number 1. It's always the letters "O" and "I".
2. When booking online, should you get a phone call or leave the computer for an extended amount of time while booking a reservation, the security software will "time out" to make the seats available for another Customer. We do this because, otherwise, individuals would be able to hold seats indefinitely without ever making a purchase. If you try to continue after a time out, you will receive an error that states "the reservations system is unable to process your reservation." Unfortunately, you will need to start over again from the beginning and go all the way through without stopping.
3. Internet fares are only available on
southwest.com. As such, our Reservations Sales Agents are unable to offer Internet fares over the phone. We also can't check you in for your boarding pass over the phone. Click
here for information on online checkin.
4. Rapid Rewards Awards reservations cannot be made through the "Book A Flight" option on the right hand side of the page. The information is accessed by going to the top of the web site and clicking on "Book Travel." From there, click on Rapid Rewards Awards Reservations and select your desired flights. The system will ask you to login to your Rapid Rewards account. If there are no Awards in your account, the system will not allow you to move to the next step.
5. Sometimes your reservations won't show up in your MySouthwest snapshot. This is because you need to be logged in to your MySouthwest account at the time of the initial booking for the reservations to display on this page.
The Art of Communication (and other miscellaneous items)
1. Sometimes, we just can't hear you. The modern marvels that are cell phone coverage and speaker phones can distort the human voice. N sounds like M, X sounds like S or F, and B sounds like D. If you're on a cell phone or a speaker phone, please spell out your name and especially your confirmation number phonetically so we can be sure to get it right!
2. We don't fly to Mexico (who knows what will happen in the future). For some reason I get asked that a lot.
3. For most of your questions regarding what you can take on a plane, the
Transportation Secuirty Administration's web site pretty much has it covered with several comprehensive lists.
Hopefully, these tips will help you when booking your next Southwest trip. Please, feel free to comment or ask questions! We LUV hearing your comments!
