How mad should I be about this and do I have any options

[ABWLDS3]

We were traveling to San Diego for my grandmother-in-laws 90th birthday. We bought the tickets way in advance and the flight was scheduled for the morning of 8/19. We were really nervous when we heard about hurricane Hillary but were hopeful since the storm was downgraded to a tropical storm once it hit land down in Mexico and was not supposed to hit SoCal until the night of 8/20 into the next morning. No cancellations or delays that morning. We got to the gate and checked the travel advisories and San Diego was not listed until the next day. The plane arrived on-time and was deboarding. Just before we were supposed to start our boarding process, the gate agent announced they cancelled the flight "due to weather." I assumed it was due to Hillary and waited (as asked by the gate agent) to get automatically rebooked. However, as we were waiting, the agent made another announcement that all of our bags would still be flown to San Diego?? The flight still took off on time taking all of our bags to San Diego even though there was a "weather cancellation?" Southwests cancellation policy states that the bags will be returned to you in case of a weather-related cancellation. No one could explain why our bags went but we could not. We then received notice that our flights were rebooked to late Monday night, two days later. Obviously, that didn't work for anyone on my flight. So, everyone got in line to try to re-book with the gate agent. We were pretty quick to get in line and were in the front 1/4 of the line but it still took over an hour to speak to the agent. As we waited, I was looking for other possible flights. Unfortunately, we needed three seats which is difficult to find last minute but found multiple flights still going to the SoCal area. Long Beach, Burbank and Ontario all had flights (although not all had three seats). If our flight was cancelled due to weather, wouldn't all flights to the area be cancelled as well? So, we re-booked to go to Burbank (the closest city we could find) and planned to rent a car and drive the three hours to San Diego. The flight had a connecting flight in Albuquerque. As we waited, we got a notification that the flight to Albuquerque was delayed and then delayed again to where it would be impossible to make our connecting flight. Albuquerque had no other options at that time either. The line to speak with the gate agent was still extremely long so we started looking for other options. There was a flight to Long Beach the next morning, but we would miss the birthday party (the reason for our trip) and the chances of another weather cancellation were even higher as Hillary was supposed to hit that evening. We then looked at other airlines and found that American Airlines still had several flights going to San Diego that same day. Unfortunately, booking a flight that same day was waaaaay more expensive. We bit the bullet, cancelled our Southwest flight and booked with American. We got to American and there were no cancellations or delays. The pilot came over the intercom before we took off and told us the weather in San Diego was really nice. Maybe a light rain. Our flight had no issues or turbulence. We arrived in San Diego, and it was beautiful. No rain yet. We found our bags at the Southwest terminal (except for our car seat which had been transferred to Burbank but that is another story and I'm satisfied with how Southwest handled it). Unfortunately, we still missed the birthday party due to all the delays with Southwest.

I apologize this was so long. But I'm still really mad that Southwest cancelled our flight under the pretense of weather when that was clearly not true. They didn't follow their own protocols for a weather cancellation. The flight arrived and left on time, but we were not allowed to be on it. They were not able to provide us any kind of suitable alternative and we were forced to spend a lot of extra money booking through another airline where we would not have lost the money had we just booked with them in the first place. I emailed them and received a generic response with the offer to refund our one-way flight (which they should have already done.) I feel like they should pay for the extra we had to spend to book a same-day flight. Am I being unreasonable and is that a legitimate demand?

[dfwskier]

You said a lot.

Did you say that your plane flew to San Diego passengerless, but did take baggage? That would be weird.

Southwest got burned bad last December, and now is being very conservative with how it handles things. The situation made SW very averse to having crews / planes end up in the wrong places. Thus, It does seem to be  canceling more flights than the competition.

Your best bet is to register a complaint with the airline. Click on "contact us" below to do so.

[ABWLDS3]

I guess I'm not sure. There is a good chance there were passengers on the plane continuing on to San Diego from the previous flight. I just know they loaded our bags on the plane, and it still went to San Diego. We were just told the flight was cancelled due to weather. They could not explain how/why our bags and the plane were still going to San Diego.

[dfwskier]

What were the flight number, date and departure airport? we can determine whether or not flight flight took place.

[ABWLDS3]

Flight #4750 from Dallas Love Field to San Diego on August 19, 2023.

[dfwskier]

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@ABWLDS3 wrote:

Flight #4750 from Dallas Love Field to San Diego on August 19, 2023.

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i checked flight aware, and it really was canceled. So I don't know where your plane went, but it appears it was not San Diego.

[ABWLDS3]

Thanks! That just makes me more confused as to why they wouldn't just return our baggage then? How did our bags get to San Diego? They were there waiting for us at the Southwest baggage claim office when we arrived that evening, so they flew there somehow.

[dfwskier]

I just checked the two later non stop DAL/SAN flights that day. They both operated. So if your bags ended up in SAN anyway, they likely went out on one of those flights. I guess you couldn't get on either of those flights?

[ABWLDS3]

Yeah when we looked it said they were 'unavailable,' they must have been fully booked. It confirms that it wasn't weather related either way.

[SoCalFlyer97]

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@dfwskier wrote:

I just checked the two later non stop DAL/SAN flights that day. They both operated. So if your bags ended up in SAN anyway, they likely went out on one of those flights. I guess you couldn't get on either of those flights?

ABWLDS3 OBSERVER:

Yeah when we looked it said they were 'unavailable,' they must have been fully booked. It confirms that it wasn't weather related either way.

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I would keep in mind going forward that when rebooking online or via the app, if the booking page returns "Unavailable" for all of the fares, that does not mean that the flight is sold out. It might be due to irregular flight operations. In fact, I believe it would be smart for an airline to close public sales of the later flights so that the seats can be held for any displaced passengers at the airport who booked and were waiting for the earlier cancelled flight.

To give an example, last August 2022, I had a day trip in LAS and was returning to SAN in the afternoon. LAS had serious afternoon monsoon thunderstorms that was not forecasted and I got a text alert that my return flight was going to be 2+ hours delayed due to a large thunderstorm cell that would pass through LAS. The service frequency for SAN-LAS is generous--anywhere from 50-90 minutes in between flights from early morning 'til late evening.

I held an Anytime fare for that trip and attempted to do a Same Day Flight Change via the website to an earlier trip that was not delayed...All of the afternoon outbound flights showed "Unavailable" for all of the fare classes. I go to a CSA at the airport to see if they can accommodate me and they were able to get me switched to the earlier flight on the spot with the flight only about 60% full--I was even still able to grab a decent window seat toward the back of the plane.

Did you talk to a Southwest CSA at DAL about rebooking to a different flight or being added to the Standby List before booking the ticket with American Airlines? Southwest's policy states that passengers re-accommodated following flight disruptions get top priority for free Same Day Standby List, even ahead of A-List and A-List Preferred.