Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

sharonrose
Explorer B

YES!  A class action suit would be a great idea.  Honest, ethical people didn't try to find dishonest workarounds to hang on to their travel funds.  They trusted that Southwest would do the honest and ethical thing.  I understand that airlines are losing money -- but Southwest received MILLIONS in government bailouts- that OUR taxpayer money.  And they want to keep individual travelers money as well.  That is corporate greed of the worst kind.  I think the people on here are Southwest employee shills trying to blunt the egregious actions of Southwest by saying SOME people found out a trick to extend their funds.  I didn't try any tricks -- just relied on the presumed decency of Southwest to do the right thing.  Or arrogant people who are saying -- hey I figured out a way to cheat the system to bad for you that you are honest.  Why would I book a new flight when I KNEW I couldn't fly?  I'm nearly 70 years old and a widow and Southwest wants me to believe they desperately need my money to stay afloat.  This is really appalling.

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

dfwskier
Aviator A

@sharonrose wrote:

YES!  A class action suit would be a great idea.   

 

Try that if you will, but you will lose. You see you agreed to a contract when you bought your tickets. You agreed to the terms of the contract. two of the terms are;

 

1) Non refundable tickets are NON REFUNDABLE - no exception unless Southwest either cancels your flight or changes it

 

2) If  a traveler cancels a non refundable ticket, then a travel fund is issued and that fund expires one year from the date of ticket purchase.

 

It's all in writing and you did agree to it when you bought your ticket. You could have bought a refundable ticket instead. You chose not to.

 

Nonetheless , Southwest offered the best deal in the industry by letting travelers extend travel funds til 9/7/22. I'm sorry you did not take advantage of that.

 

See my other response to you for a way for you to be able to use a significant part of your ticket purchase in the future.

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

bamacass
Explorer B

@tjsazwnflyer 

I agree, especially since in addition to keeping passenger funds,  Southwest is also trying to force some workers to take a pay cut or be laid off. We don't see them, but in terms of our safety, the mechanics are some of the most important people in the airline industry

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2020/11/06/southwest-issues-42-furlough-notices-after-c...

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

dfwskier
Aviator A

@bamacass wrote:

@tjsazwnflyer 

I agree, especially since in addition to keeping passenger funds,  Southwest is also trying to force some workers to take a pay cut or be laid off. We don't see them, but in terms of our safety, the mechanics are some of the most important people in the airline industry

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2020/11/06/southwest-issues-42-furlough-notices-after-c...


Southwest is being honest with it's workers. ALL NON UNION SW employees have already had wage cuts. Unions have to decide whether to join their non union friends or simply let the least senior people get laid off. That is what the contracts say will happen.

 

For those that get laid off would they have been better off with a 10% wage cut or whatever they get from unemployment plus whatever they'd get from the union?

 

If you haven;t been paying attention, United and American have already laid off tens of thousands of workers.

Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

SWFlyer007
Aviator C

@slivingh I agree with @dfwskier  You know for $600, If it were me, I'd maybe even throw in a, "What if I paid $100 for an extension?"  You never know.  Pay another $100 to save $600 sounds like a win to me.  

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@SWFlyer007 wrote:

@slivingh I agree with @dfwskier  You know for $600, If it were me, I'd maybe even throw in a, "What if I paid $100 for an extension?"  You never know.  Pay another $100 to save $600 sounds like a win to me.  


 

With regards to this, Southwest's "unpublished policy" is as follows:

 

Once your travel funds are expired, you have 6 months in which to request that they be reissued as a voucher. If granted, that voucher will be good for 6 months from the date of issue.

 

Vouchers are good for use by anyone, not just the named passenger(s) as with travel funds, but are only good for the airfare portion of travel, not any taxes or fees.

 

Currently, the fee for this exception is $100 per fund/passengers, which is deducted from the travel funds' balance. If you have multiple travel funds, consider using them towards a new flight and then cancelling that flight, to effectively combine them into one fund, so that you'll only pay one fee. If there are multiple passengers on the fund you'll pay the $100 fee for each passenger.

 

This is a non-published policy, so everything about it can change without notice, including the fee, which has risen from $50 to $75 and now $100 over the past few years.

 

To make the request reach out to Customer Relations after your funds have expired.

 

Contact Customer Relations 

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

ThatAdamGuy
Explorer C

Hi there,

 

I had $185 in funds expire today.

Am I correct in understanding if I wait *just under 6 months* to request a re-issue, I'll get $85 in credit *from the day I request it*?  Or just 6 months from expiration no matter what, e.g., May 2, 2021?

 

Thanks in advance for the info 🙂

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

wrthsmths
Explorer C

So if we pay the $100/each for our funds that expire in December, we get a single voucher for the balance?

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

dfwskier
Aviator A

@wrthsmths wrote:

So if we pay the $100/each for our funds that expire in December, we get a single voucher for the balance?


You would get one voucher for each travel fund that you convert.

 

So, if you have multiple travel funds, you could use up to three of them to buy one new ticket, and then cancel that ticket. The result would be one expiring travel fund and one $100 fee to convert to a voucher. If you have more than three, then continue the process.

 

So if you did that twice, you could turn 5-6 travel funds into 2. You could then continue that process and turn those 2 into 1. I'm pretty sure you could find a $1300+ rt business select fare

to use    high value travel funds on.

Re: Can't use Travel funds by Expiration due to Covid

wrthsmths
Explorer C

Thanks.   I too was unaware of the summer buy-another-ticket-and-cancel idea.  SW told me there was nothing I could do (except for the post-expiration voucher).  Life ain't fair, oh well.  I appreciate the voucher gathering idea.  Cheers.