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Can't find my unused travel funds

tenminutemile
Explorer C

Why is it so hard to find my list of unused travel funds? I have no idea what the confirmation # would be, and last time I checked there was more than one anyway.  The site gives no tips whatsover on the page where you click Travel Funds. I need to see a list of my unused travel funds with confirmation #s so I can apply them all to  ticket I'm trying to purchase. And I don't want to call because I'm choosing between various city pairs and dates and watching price changes carefully. Plus every time I call I get interrogated by the agent before they'll answer a simple question. Thanks for any help from this community!

8 REPLIES 8

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

dfwskier
Aviator A

Hello.

 

This topic comes up all the time. I'm sorry to report tha the answer is always the same. The airline does NOT maintain a database of unused travel funds so the airline cannot tell you things like the confirmation numbers tied to your travel funds.

 

You'll have to find the e-mails the company sent you when you cancelled or changed itineraries. Those e-mails will give you confirmation numbers, expiration dates, and dollar amounts. Hopefully, you did not delete them.

 

Sorry, but that is the only way.

 

 

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

tenminutemile
Explorer C

Hmmm.  Thank you for taking the time to answer. That's certainly how it seems, but.... when I booked or changed a ticket a couple of weeks ago, it showed that I had unused travel funds, and the amount. I remember because I was very surprised to see that--had no idea I had unused travel funds.  I wouldn't even know to be asking about it if I hadn't seen that. At the time I didn't want to use the funds because I was changing my ticket to a cheaper one. So it seems like there is a way to see them through some sort of trickery. Super frustrating and kind of shocking considering we have the technology for far more complicated things, lol. I'll continue to investigate and share any new details I may find. Thanks again.

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

CareforNOLA
Frequent Flyer A

@tenminutemile, I agree that is frustrating, and hopefully you can access the confirmation number within the original email.  The airline doesn’t charge change fees, but they require their customers to keep up with the confirmation numbers.  

 

Although calling them will not get any information, the computer system must track them because I have been rejected by accidentally using the same confirmation and recieved an error message that said there were no funds left under that confirmation number.

 

**bleep** luck and smooth travels.

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

tenminutemile
Explorer C

Yes, I do appreciate the no-fee change policy. But when you don't fly that often, it's easy to lose track of, and just lose, travel funds. I wonder how many $$$ I've lost now between flights I booked and then changed for my kids and myself.  I always recheck fares and rebook if it goes down. I did just find one of my older travel fund emails, and even though it doesn't expire until May and I'm booking today, I can't use it because the new flight I'm booking isn't until June. Also disappointing. Could have used that in December if I'd known I had it!!  Doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to include unused travel funds in your account details.  Still can't figure out how or where I saw that I had unused travel funds a couple of weeks ago. Definitely saw it on the site because that's how this whole topic started!

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

dfwskier
Aviator A

@tenminutemile wrote:

Yes, I do appreciate the no-fee change policy. But when you don't fly that often, it's easy to lose track of, and just lose, travel funds. I wonder how many $$$ I've lost now between flights I booked and then changed for my kids and myself.  I always recheck fares and rebook if it goes down. I did just find one of my older travel fund emails, and even though it doesn't expire until May and I'm booking today, I can't use it because the new flight I'm booking isn't until June. Also disappointing. Could have used that in December if I'd known I had it!!  Doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to include unused travel funds in your account details.  Still can't figure out how or where I saw that I had unused travel funds a couple of weeks ago. Definitely saw it on the site because that's how this whole topic started!


Morning.

 

Well, if you don't travel that often and you are only dealing with tickets you've changed, then your task gets easier.

 

You can get the confirmation numbers of all flights you've taken in the last year from the Southwest website.  Same for all flights you have not yet taken. Then you can check whether or not those confirmation numbers have any  travel funds tied to them. You'll need the number and the name of the traveler. You'll have to do it one  number at a time.

 

https://www.southwest.com/flight/travel-funds-search.html

 

As I said earlier, searching for your e-mails might be easier

 

You received an e-mail every time you changed a flight.

e-mail sent prior to mid November had a subject that started "Updated Travel Reservation"

e-mail sent after that time include "Your Change is Confrmed" as a subject

 

When you cancel a reservation the airline sends you an e-mail

e-mail sent prior to about mid November has "Cancelled Flight Reservation" as subject

e-mail sent after that has "This Reservation has Been Cancelled" as subject

 

All e-mails tell you whether you have travel funds, when they expire and the dollar value.

You can search your e-mail for the titles referred to above.

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

tenminutemile
Explorer C

Yes, thank you, I do understand the various ways to search for travel funds now, but it's far from customer friendly. I have to search my email and have my kids search theirs and then gmail search has not been working very well lately. And I found two emails for the same confirmation number with two different travel fund amounts. I think we all agree that searching for emails and finding one confirmation number at a time, or tracking with spreadsheets is grossly inefficient and easily leads to missed funds. If they can't change how it works, they can certainly message it a lot better. Big bold print in the email message in the email body, etc. As is it's fine print way down in a message with no iindication in the message subjecgt that there's a credit associated with the change or cancellation. I've now lost travel funds because I didn't realize they were there.  If I have to choose between free changes and free bags and an awful travel fund policy, it's an easy choice. But I will definitely be sending feedback on how to make the travel fund search and discovery process less terrible. 

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

dfwskier
Aviator A

You are welcome. Yes it cumbersome but manageable if you use a system. I travel a lot and change/cancel reservations a lot so I need a system. Here's what I do.

 

Every time make a reservation the e-mail goes into an e-mail folder called "travel"

Everytime I change or cancel a reservation and have travel funds the e-mail goes into an e-mail folder called "travel funds". 

Everytime I use travel funds (If used completely) I move the e-mail from the "travel funds" folder to a folder called "travel funds used. "

 

If you want to make your suggestion directly to the airline, you should click on "contact us" at the bottom of this page, and then pick a contact method from the top  left of the ensuing page.

Re: Can't find my unused travel funds

tenminutemile
Explorer C

That's a good system and I will probably start doing something similar. Would have been nicer if I'd known it was necessary before losing some of my travel funds.  Already reached out to them with my feedback. I'm a content professional and advocate for the content consumer, so I have a lot of feedback for a lot of companies. Haha.  Adding or changing a few words to make important information more clear and visible doesn't cost much at all, but creates a much better customer experience.