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Refund for purchased points

Heineken022
Explorer C

I've been a loyal Southwest customer since 2008 and have gone out of my way to support them even though flights are often longer and less convenient.  I earned companion pass in 2019 and will earn it again in the next few months should I decide to continue using Southwest.

 

I booked a flight for my entire family and purchased $1500 in Rapid Rewards points at the recommendation of my booking agent to keep us all together on the same ticket (excluding the Companion passenger).  Southwest just cancelled the flight for no apparent reason and refunded my points to my account however I wanted the $1500 refunded as I have no use for the extra points at this time.  I have also flown enough to make up for the purchased points even during the pandemic. 

 

I understand that there are limitations on what can be done with purchased points however the CSR that told me that was the best way to go never mentioned they were not refundable. 

 

Hopefully this will save someone from doing this as Southwest doesn't appear to be too concerned about customer loyalty back to them.

4 REPLIES 4

Re: Refund for purchased points

dfwskier
Aviator A

Sorry your flights got cancelled and you find yourself in this situation.

 

When buying points, Southwest does disclose that the purchase is non refundable. There is no * with a reference below that starts with the word "unless." That means non refundable for any reason. Sorry.

 

As an aside, it almost never makes sense to buy large numbers of points. The cost of purchased points always exceeds the value you get from those points in buying tickets. For those that need just a few points to be able to buy a ticket, it might make sense.

 

You would have been better off buying 2 or 3 different tickets for your family - some with points and some with cash.. 

 

Edit add: Have you tried to rebook on different flights?

Re: Refund for purchased points

Heineken022
Explorer C

Yeah, unfortunately my wife listened to the booking agent said and went with it.

 

I'm just annoyed about how it was handled.   Not even a handful of extra points or anything was offered.  Not that I expect that or deserve that, however they can look at how much I have flown and could probably do something about it. 

Re: Refund for purchased points

Heineken022
Explorer C

I should've transferred points from my Sapphire card over to SW to get the extra flights.  Unfortunately I was in the air and she was trying to book these before they were sold out.

 

Live and learn...

Re: Refund for purchased points

dfwskier
Aviator A

@Heineken022 wrote:

Yeah, unfortunately my wife listened to the booking agent said and went with it.

 

I'm just annoyed about how it was handled.   Not even a handful of extra points or anything was offered.  Not that I expect that or deserve that, however they can look at how much I have flown and could probably do something about it. 


I suspect the booking agent was simply trying to help your   wife do what she said she wanted to do: buy  tickets with points. Agents are trained to help customers do what the customers want to do.

 

I suspect that agents are not trained to say things like "are your sure you want to do that?" or

"buying points is not a good idea" or "you do realize there is a better way to do what you want."

 

It's no different than  trying to buy a very expensive ticket to Burbank - even though it might be much cheaper to fly to LAX. You say you want to go to Burbank, and that's what the agent will try to help you do.