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Travel funds name never match due to multiple first names

alx
Explorer C

Hi,

 

I'm trying to add my wife as a companion to my flight using travel funds refunded to her (after previously adding her and changing our flight). But it's giving us an error because the name on the funds doesn't match the reservation/RR account.

 

However, the issue is, the travel funds process always strips out her second first name, so they NEVER match her actual name on the reservation/RR account. So Southwest makes it impossible to redeem these without waiting on hold for 2+ hours with customer support, or reaching out via other methods, and not hearing back for days.

 

We've run into this issue many times before with travel funds, and always have to contact your support. This looks like a long standing issue, affecting multiple customers: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/southwest-airlines-rapid-rewards/2008687-companion-pass-travel-fund-...

 

Can you please fix this issue with your travel fund issuing system, or at least allow for name variations, or a unique travel fund code rather than matching names? There has to be a better way.

4 REPLIES 4

Re: Travel funds name never match due to multiple first names

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A
Solution

It certainly does seem like an issue that could be resolved.  Since this is a customer to customer forum your best bet is sending the comment directly to Southwest, Contact Customer Relations 

I would also suggest in the future if you need to get help with this, send a private message to Southwest on Facebook or Twitter.  They are usually pretty quick to respond there and as long as no additional payment is required they should be able to complete the transaction for you.  It might be quicker than the other contact methods you mentioned trying previously.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Travel funds name never match due to multiple first names

dfwskier
Aviator A

@alx wrote:

Hi,

 

I'm trying to add my wife as a companion to my flight using travel funds refunded to her (after previously adding her and changing our flight). But it's giving us an error because the name on the funds doesn't match the reservation/RR account.

 

 It seems to me that you should either

1) modify the name on the RR account to match the name on tickets/ trvel funds .or.

2) Make future ticket purchases with the name that matches the RR account

 

I'm confused because my experience is that #2 above always happens - thus any trvel funds would automatically carry the name listed on the RR account.

 

Was her name simply mis typed when the original ticket was purchased?

 

Edit add: Question --why do need to use travel funds to acquire a <free> companion pass ticket?

 

Re: Travel funds name never match due to multiple first names

deeteecee
Explorer C

I ran into this similar issue where my name has dashes. What I figured out was a few subtleties:
* Since my name has dashes, only use the first part before the dashes. (e.g: Mary-Ann would just be Mary)
* Your "First Name" also has to follow this pattern in the traveler's section. This is another section where you also put in your name. If it doesn't, the "Apply Funds" section will still fail even if you put that in correctly.

Hope that can help some poor soul in the future or if SW gets their stuff together.

Re: Travel funds name never match due to multiple first names

kabanilla
Explorer C

I am having this same problem and I see that you posted yours two years ago. Southwest has not fixed the problem. 

 

My child has two first names. Both names are listed on their Rapid Rewards account. But when I try to use travel funds, it will only match if I drop the 2nd first name. But then it doesn't match the Rapid Rewards account. I've tried contacting Southwest multiple times and it's a system limitation. There's nothing they can do. So on the Rapid Rewards account I ended up putting their two first names as one word and I don't like this since it's technically incorrect but that was our workaround.