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Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

scha0984
Explorer C

I am trying to figure this out and thank you for the information.  I had asked about expiring credits and was told I needed to wait until they expire before we could do anything.  So we waited for them to expire and then called.  They stated the $100 per person which they didn't tell us and it would be 4-6 weeks?  

 

They said we can email customer relations but they will review and respond in weeks as well.  

 

Trying to find help for we cancelled due to Covid and now we are looking at future trip and have lost a couple hundred dollars now becuase we weren't told many of these things. 

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

scha0984
Explorer C

Where is any of this extension information posted online?  I haven't seen this $100 and seems that some know it and some don't or they decide to not share it. 

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@scha0984 wrote:

Where is any of this extension information posted online?  I haven't seen this $100 and seems that some know it and some don't or they decide to not share it. 


 

Nothing is posted online. This unofficial policy is a special goodwill accommodation that may be granted by Customer Relations when upon request. Previous to the pandemic, knowledge of the policy was relatively rare. Phone reps may or may not advise customers of this potential option, and many don't mention the fee. That fee has risen from $50 to $75 to $100 per travel fund/person over the years, and everything about this -- including that fee -- is subject to change at any time.

 

Officially, once your funds are expired, they're gone.

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

jksobonya
Aviator A

@chgoflyer wrote:

@scha0984 wrote:

Where is any of this extension information posted online?  I haven't seen this $100 and seems that some know it and some don't or they decide to not share it. 


 

Nothing is posted online. This unofficial policy is a special goodwill accommodation that may be granted by Customer Relations when upon request. Previous to the pandemic, knowledge of the policy was relatively rare. Phone reps may or may not advise customers of this potential option, and many don't mention the fee. That fee has risen from $50 to $75 to $100 per travel fund/person over the years, and everything about this -- including that fee -- is subject to change at any time.

 

Officially, once your funds are expired, they're gone.


I may finally be in this boat with expiring travel funds I may not be able to use. I had a flight booked for May, but due to flight cuts I canceled the flight out of frustration only to find out that the funds were expiring in June 2021 because I had applied a previous travel fund (from all the way back in June 2020) to the reservation. I believe this fund had an expiration of September 2022 at one point, but when you use it (and then cancel it) the 2022 expiration doesn't hold and it reverts back to the original expiration. There could be a potential argument to be made that any fund that was granted an expiration of 2022 should keep the 2022 expiration if it is used and cancelled again, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Regardless, if I can extend the travel fund by reissuing it as a voucher, I would do that, even at a $100 loss. I'll have to see what I can do. 

 

--Jessica

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@jksobonya wrote:

@chgoflyer wrote:

@scha0984 wrote:

Where is any of this extension information posted online?  I haven't seen this $100 and seems that some know it and some don't or they decide to not share it. 


 

Nothing is posted online. This unofficial policy is a special goodwill accommodation that may be granted by Customer Relations when upon request. Previous to the pandemic, knowledge of the policy was relatively rare. Phone reps may or may not advise customers of this potential option, and many don't mention the fee. That fee has risen from $50 to $75 to $100 per travel fund/person over the years, and everything about this -- including that fee -- is subject to change at any time.

 

Officially, once your funds are expired, they're gone.


I may finally be in this boat with expiring travel funds I may not be able to use. I had a flight booked for May, but due to flight cuts I canceled the flight out of frustration only to find out that the funds were expiring in June 2021 because I had applied a previous travel fund (from all the way back in June 2020) to the reservation. I believe this fund had an expiration of September 2022 at one point, but when you use it (and then cancel it) the 2022 expiration doesn't hold and it reverts back to the original expiration. There could be a potential argument to be made that any fund that was granted an expiration of 2022 should keep the 2022 expiration if it is used and cancelled again, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Regardless, if I can extend the travel fund by reissuing it as a voucher, I would do that, even at a $100 loss. I'll have to see what I can do. 

 

--Jessica


 

For clarity, as we've often seen confusion over this issue: When you apply a travel fund that was extended to September 7, 2022 to a new booking and then cancel that booking, the fund's expiration changes to one year from the date of the new booking (not the original expiration date of the fund).

 

An exception would be if you also used an earlier-expiring fund on that reservation, as in that case all funds would take on the earliest expiration of any funds applied.

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

ksoyini
Explorer A

I do believe there are differences in the policy (and unofficial policy) between credits/travel funds and luv vouchers, the $100 fee being one of them. 

If you contact customer service about it I believe they’ll refer to your previous conversation and see what you were told and then make a determination from there. Hopefully If they can confirm that you weren’t told about the fee they’ll do the right thing and waive it in this case.  

Unfortunately with customer service not everyone knows everything (which is why I call multiple times to verify).

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

chgoflyer
Aviator A

Vouchers may be reissued without a fee, depending on why the Voucher was issued in the first place (for example, if it was issued due to a negative customer service situation). I have never heard of anyone having Travel Funds reissued as a voucher without having the fee deducted from their balance.

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

mkfloyd
Explorer C

I hate to sound redundant but I am in a very similar situation I had travel vouchers issued to me 5/2019 that were to expire 5/2020. However as we all know Covid hit and when it hit I immediately called Customer Relations to get more clarification on my Luv Vouchers possible extension however the wait to speak with someone was over 2hours long. I researched the website where I found under travel funds that any travel funds issued by Southwest would be extended to the year 2022 (I took a screenshot) it’s stated nothing about love vouchers however being new to the airline industry as a traveler, but a corporation professional creating policies,  I thought it was as simple as travel funds being any credit issued by Southwest for travel (points, vouchers, and credits, rescheduled trips, etc.) especially since the website didn’t indicate otherwise. However, when I finally got an opportunity to speak with someone in customer relations, WOW 😮 did I find out how wrong I was! The Rep argued me down stating I assumed that is what it meant, which was incorrect and I was wrong for (assuming) thinking that, although the site is not very informative of the unspoken policies commonly affecting its customers (extremely weird) and not a customer friendly practice. Either way, after much pushback, I finally got a call from an upper manager who informed me that they understood my issue and feedback, they had no problem with reissuing my 8 luv vouchers to be used within three months of my call, which took place January 2021. I explain to them I have a pre-existing condition and right now Covid hasn’t lifted, I wasn’t feeling very safe at the airports and wasn’t ready to travel yet. That within a year of pandemic had changed slowly I didn’t see things changing for me to travel and vaccines were not being issued yet. Still they pushed back and told me that I could basically assign them to anyone (family members children, etc.,) and I told her I wasn’t ready to make a decision on the spot as I was unaware of this policy and if they could let me see if I could find somebody to use them and I’d call back, she agreed. When I called them back at the end of February to let them know that wasn’t a possibility they still stated only a three month extension and I had to have them issued that day. I didn’t get my vouchers in my email until the end of March 2021 and they were set to expire June 3 2021. When I went to use them for a RT flight, I didn’t know that they cannot all be used at the same time there is a three forms of payment rule when buying a ticket. I had a week long R&R trip planned as a single mother I thought I’d only have to pay for my stay but now I still owe on the airline ticket itself because I can’t use all eight Luv vouchers at one time or even half of them totally  bummed! My question is, at this point where am I in process of possibly having my Luv  vouchers extended (which extension am I needing to request if it’s possible) or would it be better for me to just use some or all of them (taking kids a/me). I kind of prefer using some now (2) extending the rest (6) for future travel (my 50th is coming up in the fall) but don’t want to pay more to extend what Luv voucher is worth. Any help is appreciated! - Thanks in advance.

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

@mkfloyd  You can use all your vouchers on one reservation, you just have to do an extra step to combine them first.  Like everything else you mentioned, knowledge is power.

 

Find a flight that costs as close as possible to the value of 3 vouchers, but not more than the 3 vouchers.  Book that flight using the 3 vouchers.  Cancel that flight and you will have 1 travel fund good for the value of the cancelled fare.  That travel fund can only be used by the passenger you named on the cancelled flight so be careful and book under the correct name.  Repeat this process until you have reduced the number of vouchers into as few travel funds as possible for each passenger you want to have on the trip.  You can even combine travel funds for the same passenger using this same method if you have several.  If you wanted you could repeat the process enough times to have just one travel fund.  Also keep in mind that when you combine either vouchers or travel funds the resulting credit has the earliest expiration date of all the credits being combined.

 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: LUV VOUCHER EXIRATION AND EXTENSION

bd1996
Explorer C

How are folks doing with your luv voucher reissues? I’m several weeks past the 21 business days and still no email. I’ve called a couple times. Last week my vouchers  had  just been “touched” a few minutes before I called and were ready to be emailed (so I was told). I plan to call this weekend again but want to see if others are experiencing delays and if yes, how long?