Southwest changed my flight without notification, cost me $$$, and did nothing to help

[pinchvalve]

I booked a flight that had a stopover in BWI, which was perfect because my daughter lives in DC and would be joining the three of us for the second leg of the trip. This allowed us to make a single shuttle reservation from the airport to the hotel, and make dinner reservations for when we arrived. At some point, Southwest canceled the flight to BWI and re-routed us through another city. The issue is that we had no idea this happened until a few days before the flight! Their claim was that I had the wrong email on file, but I had received emails at my correct address at the time of booking, and several times along the way. Conveniently for Southwest, only the one critical update went to the wrong email address. (#suspicious) 

This really ruined my travel plans, I had to book a second shuttle from the airport, had to miss my dining plans, and my poor daughter had to be alone for a few hours without us, a great start to a family vacation! Southwest was unmoved at the inconvenience they caused my family, and gave me a single $50 voucher.  Gee, thanks. 

[SoCalFlyer97]

Greetings-

As a fellow traveler, sorry to hear this happened to you. The rep's "wrong email" claim was interesting...What doesn't stack is the fact that you stated you received the original booking confirmation email, the other follow up emails related to your flight, but not the flight change notice.

I think that the "wrong email" statement from the rep was a misstatement as a SW initiated flight change notice goes the same email address for the booking and you received the other emails.

When SW initiates a flight change, the subject line of the email notice reads "A change was made to your (Date) trip". I would search your email for these keywords and doublecheck to ensure this notice wasn't missed or accidently deleted.

Note that whenever SW initiates such a change and the rebooked itinerary doesn't work out, you'll be able to change your flight dates and/or time between the two city pairs by up to fourteen days from your original travel date at no difference in fare. These changes can typically be done via the self serve tools but a rep may be able to assist you if you have preferred layover city that you want to use.

As you already contacted SW customer service on this and they issued you a voucher, it looks like you done what you can but I think their reasoning of the missed email was misstated. If you know for sure that you didn't receive the notice about your changed flight, I would reach out again, but restate that you received all emails except for the flight change email and that you believe the "wrong email" response was a misstatement given the fact that you received the other emails. That should prompt SW staff to review this further to confirm if there were any issues on their end.

A side note: Several weeks ago, there was an issue of SW initiating changes to traveler's flights in response to Boeing delivery issues but the self serve Change Flight module didn't allow changes without paying a difference in fare which required travers desiring to rebook their flights to go through a Rep. Not sure if this issue and yours were related; thus suggest reaching out again.

Hope this helps!

[bec102896]

Schedule changes are no fun but they are just a part of air travel nowadays. As mentioned by @SoCalFlyer97 I would check the email for that subject line A change was made to your (date ex 07/26) trip you would then get two free changes should you need to. 

In this case, they would probably not cover your shuttle because they got you to the destination at least they issued the voucher as an apology because there’s a good chance the Schedule change email may actually be there. It just got overlooked or is in a spam folder or accidentally deleted if your one who deletes emails 

once you found out that the reservation was changed when you called they should have been able to tell you a schedule change occurred and offered you a free change that part that they ignored is the shocking part to me because they could have looked to see if any flights would have matched up to your flight  even if that means your flight has to change Or a flight where you arrive near each other time wise. 

The good news though is that they did issue a voucher which can be used by anyone as long as you travel by the expiration date so if you don’t want to use it personally you can give it to another family member or friend   

[DancingDavidE]

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@pinchvalve wrote:

I booked a flight that had a stopover in BWI, which was perfect because my daughter lives in DC and would be joining the three of us for the second leg of the trip. This allowed us to make a single shuttle reservation from the airport to the hotel, and make dinner reservations for when we arrived. At some point, Southwest canceled the flight to BWI and re-routed us through another city. 

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Even a few days before your flight you could have still called to try and get on an earlier flight to BWI and then met your daughter as planned for the second leg.

[Jupdachurch]

We had a similar situation when going to Arizona. We had a layover at BWI, suddenly we're stopping in PSP (palm springs). We didn't recall seeing that in our initial boarding. 

It was only when I looked closer there was small print of a stop in PSP then right to Phoenix. 

So it may have been there but just not noticed. Just my thoughts. Still I'm sorry this happened to you.