Canceled Roundtrip Flight - only refund one way

[rschneg]

Our family booked a round trip direct flight from MCO to IND prior to COVID-19.  When COVID-19 happened, we were relieved we booked with SWA because we had heard if you cancel you'd get a credit back for future flights.  We cancelled our roundtrip flights.  After a month gone by, realized I never received a confirmation or any additional emails. 

Called SWA customer service, very friendly agent was confused on what happened to my cancelation and credit. After being on hold while SWA investigated, they found only the first half of our flight was credited.  Because SWA had reschedule the return flight from IND to BWI that had NOT been cancelled.  SWA agent wasn't able to resolve the refund, but agreed it had to be a system glitch.  She gave me an email to SWA Customer Representative.

Here is  response  SWA Customer Representative

"Dear Robert,
Thank you for contacting us. I appreciate the chance to respond. 
With our no-show policy, if a ticket is not flown and is not changed or canceled by the Customer at least 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure, the remaining itinerary will be canceled by Southwest, and all unused funds associated with a Wanna Get Away fare will be forfeited. The unused funds associated with a Business Select fare, Anytime fare, Infant fare, Child or fare segment(s) will be held as travel credit for the originally ticketed Passenger and can be applied toward future travel completed by the expiration date. 

I regret any confusion or miscommunication that may have occurred regarding your reservation. We take great care to train our Employees to correctly and efficiently confirm our Customers' travel plans. In addition, when a reservation is booked, changed, or canceled, we send a Passenger Receipt confirming the request. 

That said, while we are unable to refund the forfeited funds, we may be able to issue a Southwest LUV Voucher (SLV) if you would like to forward documentation (screen shots, cell phone reports, etc.) to show that you attempted to make contact at least 10 minutes prior to departure. Please be sure that the documentation indicates the date and time the phone call occurred as well as the phone number dialed. 

You can send your documentation to our Refunds Department by mail (P.O. Box 36649, Dallas, TX, 75235) or by email (RefundsDox@wnco.com) for consideration. You must reference the case number below as well as the confirmation number for the reservation. If approved, the SLV will be sent to you via email. While we try to review documentation as quickly as possible, we ask that you allow up to 30 days for processing. 

We hope you’ll continue looking to us when your travel plans include the cities we serve—your business is important to us.

Sincerely,
John Repp
Southwest Airlines"

How is any of this our fault?  Has other experienced this with SWA, getting only half the refund for a round trip flight? 

Should we take it higher to corporate or explore other options?

Thank You

Robert

[elijahbrantley]

I can understand your frustration here. Flexibility is a SW benefit for sure!

In this case, I would take the path SW has offered to try and resolve. It seems only one way was cancelled, and while that is an unfortunate mistake, there are a few ways you could have verified or known something was not right:

• An email confirmation of the cancellation (reviewing the details is always a good idea)
• A notification to check in: if you had truly not cancelled part of the itinerary, you should have received notification to check in to your "return" segment, and this would have tipped you off that something was not right; you could have still cancelled that leg.

Again, I'd go the route SW has suggested and hope for the best. Good luck!

[rschneg]

Thanks  elijahbrantley

It's surprising I have to prove documentation when SWA can see the first half of the round trip has been credited.  The round trip was booked under one confirmation number.  And under that confirmation, I've received a cancelation credit for MCO to IND but not for IND to MCO. 

Is it even possible to cancel half of a round trip booking under the same confirmation?

I can understand if I booked two one-way flights with two confirmations.

And why would I cancel MCO to IND and not the return IND to MCO?  I called SWA because I never received any confirmation email but the agent saw I cancelled to got the credit for the first half.   

[dfwskier]

Yup. You can cancel one out of two flights. That's a fairly recent development - within the last year..

You bring up the confirmation number, pick "cancel." Then both flights show up and you can pick either one or both.

[chgoflyer]

My recommendation would be to reach out to Customer Relations again (see below) and in a short, clear message state the facts -- you cancelled the round trip, but apparently due to some kind of "glitch" only the outbound portion was cancelled, and you never received any confirmation notification. It's worth a shot anyway.

When you cancelled, was it online or via phone? If you have any supporting records (screenshots, phone logs) include them.

I'd recommend you reach out via Facebook or Twitter direct message.

Contact Customer Relations 

Good luck.

[DancingDavidE]

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@dfwskier wrote:

Yup. You can cancel one out of two flights. That's a fairly recent development - within the last year..

You bring up the confirmation number, pick "cancel." Then both flights show up and you can pick either one or both.

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You could do it by phone before, but now you can self-service online.

I'm confused up in the beginning OP mentions BWI - was the IND->MCO originally a direct flight and then changed to a connecting fight through BWI, or was that a typo? I'm not sure if that's confusing the situation.

Part of your response should be that your original contact with Southwest was more than 10 minutes before the flight, you didn't have a second contact because the first contact was supposed to cancel the whole trip.