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Question concerning a flight cancellation...

Quidam
Explorer C

I understand "As long as you cancel your flight more than 10 minutes before its scheduled departure time, you will have the option to receive a refund to your original form of payment or Travel Funds for future use."  What if your flight is delayed?  Here was my scenario:  I was booked on a flight that had a scheduled departure time of 6:45 p.m.  The flight was delayed and the new departure time was 7:10 p.m.  So far, no problem since I generally schedule at least a one hour layover in connecting cities.  It was then announced that the flight may be delayed until 8:00 p.m.  At that point I made the decision to cancel my flight to the connecting city and the subsequent flight to my final destination, not knowing if I could make my connecting flight in time.  I did this right at 6:34 p.m., just prior to the 10 minute window of the original of the original scheduled departure time. Could I have waited until 7:00 p.m., 10 minutes prior to the new delayed departure time?  I subsequently found out that the aircraft was able to depart at 7:03 and had I been able to predict the future, I would not have cancelled my flights.

3 REPLIES 3

Re: Question concerning a flight cancellation...

jksobonya
Aviator A

There is one caveat to your statement: you can only receive a refund if your flight was booked as an Anytime or Business Select fare. Wanna Get Away fares (the cheapest fares) are not refundable to a credit card if you cancel them. 

 

With that said, if your flight experiences significant delays, it may actually be possible to get a refund - a significant delay would be 2 or more hours, on average, so in your situation I do not think you would have qualified for a refund. 

 

You can read more about Southwest's refund policies here: https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/purchasing-and-refunds/refund-info-pol.html 

 

--Jessica

Re: Question concerning a flight cancellation...

Quidam
Explorer C

It was a "Wanna Get Away" fare, but I wasn't expecting a refund. I just wanted to have the price of the tickets converted to travel funds. If I had thought I could wait until 10 minutes prior to the new delayed departure time (7:10 p.m.) to make my decision, I wouldn't have cancelled at 6:34 p.m. 

Re: Question concerning a flight cancellation...

gsking
Aviator C

I'm fairly certain it's the time of actual boarding and departure.  The intent is to be able to offer the seat for standard, which floats with time of departure.   

 


@Quidam wrote:

It was a "Wanna Get Away" fare, but I wasn't expecting a refund. I just wanted to have the price of the tickets converted to travel funds. If I had thought I could wait until 10 minutes prior to the new delayed departure time (7:10 p.m.) to make my decision, I wouldn't have cancelled at 6:34 p.m.