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Auto cancel reservations

pbaker
Explorer C

 

Southwest has begun tracking duplicate bookings and will automatically cancel your first reservation without notice, including all legs on a multi-leg booking. These changes have occurred apparently because Southwest has revamped their old reservation system that previously was unable to detect duplicate bookings.  Granted, it was against their policy so it's hard to complain, but if you are used to this "benefit" be aware it is no longer. From now on I will book all legs as one way reservations.

 

 

I spoke with a reservations agent after receiving the email, and she explained the new policy, and with some effort was able to reinstate my original reservation at the original price. 

6 REPLIES 6

Re: Auto cancel reservations

SM1
Explorer C

It happened to me also and I didn't get a email notification.  I discovered it when I looked at my swa account.  I called customer service and they explained the new policy.  They also said my credit card would be refunded.  However, it has not yet shown on my credit account.  They said it could take up to two billing cycles.  

 

Frustrating.  

Re: Auto cancel reservations

OmaChiGirl
Explorer C

The same thing happened to me EXCEPT they cancelled the second trip, not the first one. The reservationist was very nice, but it was a firedrill on the phone yesterday trying to get all of this corrected. 

 

For those of us who are frequent travelers (1-3 trips per month), this is not a good policy. The system should send you a warning email, letting you know that there is a discrepancy and give you a chance to change your flights yourself - not inadvertently choose which one it's going to cancel and send you a message several days later. 

 

I was infuriated but held off from posting on social media because I want to give Southwest a chance to make this right. They need to change this in their computer system so that it either immediately flags it in the system at the time of reservation, OR they send you a pre-emtive email, notifying you of the issue, and giving you 24 or 48 hours to fix it. 

Re: Auto cancel reservations

chgoflyer
Aviator A

Great suggestion, but they're not going to do that. At least, not anytime soon. They have their hands full fixing the many, many glitches created by the transition to the new system. And they don't consider this a glitch, but a benefit (to them).

 

The Contract of Carriage allows them to cancel any bookings they feel are made "without the intent to travel."

 

They've actually just added this information to the "what you need to know" screen when booking a flight:

 

Prohibition of Multiple/Conflicting Reservations: To promote seat availability for our Customers, Southwest prohibits multiple reservations for the same Passenger departing from the same city on the same date, or any multiple reservations containing conflicting or overlapping itineraries (such as departures for the same Customer from multiple cities at the same time). Furthermore, without advance notice to the Passenger or purchaser, Southwest may cancel such reservations, or any other reservations that it believes, in its sole discretion, were made without intent to travel. With the exception of Southwest gift cards, funds from proactively cancelled reservations by Southwest will be returned to the original form of payment. Reservations paid for with a Southwest gift card will have the amount applied from the gift card held as travel funds for use by the Customer on a future Southwest Airlines flight.

Re: Auto cancel reservations

chgoflyer
Aviator A

FYI: A rep on Facebook recently stated that, in the case of duplicates, the most expensive flight is cancelled.

 

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Re: Auto cancel reservations

Rfeld
Explorer C

If it knows enough to cancel a double booking then how cannot it not tell you at the time of the booking.  Or at least notify you of new policy.  

Re: Auto cancel reservations

chgoflyer
Aviator A

Just an update to my post earlier, referencing a reps statement that the most expensive flight would be cancelled -- that's actually not true. Later, a different rep stated that the oldest flight would be cancelled. But that's not true either. At this point there's no way of telling which flight will be cancelled.