Change Flight/Fees

[Dino68]

Hi. I recently was on a cruise that got back to port late because we diverted to Cancun because of a passenger who needed urgent medical care. We were about 3 hours late so I was probably going to miss my flight along with the 3 people I was with. I did not have internet service on the ship and only spotty service to make calls. The customer service agent told me it would be an extra $350 per ticket. It was only a 45 minute flight from Houston to Dallas. He said I had to cancel an hour in advance or I would lose the points I used to book the flights and be charged $80 per ticket. He also said the flights were full except 5 seats on the next later flight. None of this was true. I ended up paying $1300 for something that shouldn’t have cost anything extra if we had been told we could fly standby. There were plenty of seats on the plane we took. I filed a complaint with Southwest for a refund but it was denied. Their rules clearly say free standby for all tickets. If I would have had internet service or a helpful customer service agent, I would have known this. Is there anything I can do at this point?

[bec102896]

Yeah this is not fun. Most airlines have a flat tire rule if you show up within 2 hours of your original flight they will usually let you go standby on the next flight and if you explain to the customer service agent they will probably have been told the same story by another group and hopefully can assist. 

i would try to reach out to customer relations and maybe they can do something just click the contact us link at the bottom of this page ands fill out the form. 

[Dino68]

I have since found out this was a scam. Somehow when I tried connecting to Southwest, Infinity Travels intercepted the call and claimed to be Southwest Airlines. They rebooked the tickets and charged me 410 dollars extra that went to them, all while claiming to be Southwest.  The 410 showed up on my credit card as Infinity Travels. Apparently this has happened to a lot of other people, some people losing over $4000. I am going to contact Southwest Airlines to see if they can give mea credit for the $900 that went to Southwest. They probably would have let us fly standby if I actually would’ve been talking to them. 

[SoCalFlyer97]

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@Dino68 wrote:

I have since found out this was a scam. Somehow when I tried connecting to Southwest, Infinity Travels intercepted the call and claimed to be Southwest Airlines. They rebooked the tickets and charged me 410 dollars extra that went to them, all while claiming to be Southwest.  The 410 showed up on my credit card as Infinity Travels. Apparently this has happened to a lot of other people, some people losing over $4000. I am going to contact Southwest Airlines to see if they can give mea credit for the $900 that went to Southwest. They probably would have let us fly standby if I actually would’ve been talking to them. 

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Oh no! Did you search for Southwest's phone number on the internet? Unfortunately, there has been reported nationwide problems of this scam where a simple internet search to reach a live customer service rep on the phone results in third party numbers showing up in the search results in place of the airlines' official number...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/192lnr1/infinity_travels_redirected_from_airlines_google/

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94...

It appears Google has rectified this last year but I cannot speak for the other search engines. I was not able to reproduce this on my end.

However, I agree with your action. I would contact SWA again. Make sure you go here to ensure you're talking directly with a SW Rep:

https://www.southwest.com/html/contact-us/

I would retrace how you got to Infinity Travels' telephone number via the search, document your search process as supporting evidence that you intended on contacting SW directly, and dispute upcharge amounts. Your documentation of the search process should be sufficient evidence to document that you had zero intention of conducting this flight transaction through Infinity.

[DancingDavidE]

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@Dino68 wrote:

I have since found out this was a scam. Somehow when I tried connecting to Southwest, Infinity Travels intercepted the call and claimed to be Southwest Airlines. They rebooked the tickets and charged me 410 dollars extra that went to them, all while claiming to be Southwest.  The 410 showed up on my credit card as Infinity Travels. Apparently this has happened to a lot of other people, some people losing over $4000. I am going to contact Southwest Airlines to see if they can give mea credit for the $900 that went to Southwest. They probably would have let us fly standby if I actually would’ve been talking to them. 

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Thanks for posting this follow up - the first post described a conversation that you wouldn't have gotten from Southwest. To clear up for others in the same position:

• You need to cancel or change within 10 minutes prior to the departure for Southwest to avoid forfeit of your funds, points, and potential cancelation of the remainder of your itinerary. If someone on the phone is offering an hour for this it's not Southwest.
• It's not a written rule but domestic airlines will offer a "flat tire rule" if you show up to the airport in good faith of catching your original flight but miss it just slightly.
  • This is generally accepted as 1-2 hours late with an excuse - if the delay is going to be longer than that you need to call and officially change the flight which will likely cost extra - there's no change fee on Southwest but you do pay the current price difference, which is often higher for same day travel. (Not always - I got a travel credit once on a flight I had to change the same day and the current fare was lower than what I had already booked!)
• If your ticket is eligible for same day changes that's a different process as well. But you have to call in advance for this, at least the 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure.