Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Gift card Issues

Dmedrano8
Explorer C

Last year I had two gift cards that I used to make a reservation.  On the second card there was a remaining balance.  I threw the cards away since I had added the information onto my account and my experience with other businesses was that they keep track of the balance on your account.  To my surprise when I recently made a reservation, I couldn't find that info anywhere.  Today I was told I needed to reenter all the information from the card which I no longer have.  The confirmation email I have from that reservation has the card number on it.  

There should have been a note on the account to tell people they don't save the info and you should hang on to the card for future use if it has a balance.  So I'm just out the money remaining on the card because they don't care to store it in your account for you like other businesses.  So beware and don't throw away your gift cards if they have a remaining balance.  

2 REPLIES 2

Re: Gift card Issues

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

I would never think to throw away a gift card with a balance on it without first seeing and confirming the remaining balance is associated with my account, even at the few places I know that keep track of it.  Unfortunately you made a poor assumption and there are plenty of companies that don't keep remaining balance info so I hope you are more careful in the future.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Gift card Issues

chgoflyer
Aviator A

If there was a remaining balance, then that should have been an indicator that the card total wasn't somehow transferred to your account (because that's not how it works on Southwest).

 

Southwest's gift card system is pretty rudimentary. In general, I do not recommend using Southwest gift cards.