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Southwest cancelled my flight

Jack1234
Explorer C

I used a $500 gift card that my husband worked hard at work to get. Obviously gift cards can’t legally have an expiration date. We had a wedding in June and it was cancelled by the airline. They tried to just give us a voucher for the future with an expiration date for June 2021. The problem is I’m in a high risk pregnancy with a 1 year old here. I won’t be physically able to go to the wedding that was changed to the fall and I will have a newborn and I won’t be able to fly by that time. Southwest will not put it back on a gift card for me. Is there anything I can do? I can’t believe they’d be so heartless in this situation. I’d love to be able to use that gift card with my family at a later date. I didn’t cancel the flight and I’d be going in June and if I cancelled I’d understand that I have to deal with the consequences but they did.

1 REPLY 1

Re: Southwest cancelled my flight

chgoflyer
Aviator A
Solution

@Jack1234 wrote:

I used a $500 gift card that my husband worked hard at work to get. Obviously gift cards can’t legally have an expiration date. We had a wedding in June and it was cancelled by the airline. They tried to just give us a voucher for the future with an expiration date for June 2021. The problem is I’m in a high risk pregnancy with a 1 year old here. I won’t be physically able to go to the wedding that was changed to the fall and I will have a newborn and I won’t be able to fly by that time. Southwest will not put it back on a gift card for me. Is there anything I can do? I can’t believe they’d be so heartless in this situation. I’d love to be able to use that gift card with my family at a later date. I didn’t cancel the flight and I’d be going in June and if I cancelled I’d understand that I have to deal with the consequences but they did.


 

In general, refunds are made back to the original form of payment. But Gift Cards are an oddity, in that refunds are made in the form of Travel Funds. Previous to the pandemic, some customers reported receiving gift card flight cancellation refunds in the form of a new gift card, so it's possible if you reach the right person something like that may be done for you. It's admittedly a longshot, but worth a try. I'd recommend reaching out to Customer Relations (not the regular reservation staff) via Twitter or Facebook direct message. If that doesn't work, consider sending a snail-mail letter (address under "Contact Us" below). Good luck!