Canceled flight

[Hiiroxanne]

I started my trip annoyed by a 3 hour delay. Fine no biggie. I get my luggage and book it. I have a tear down the back side of my bag, whatever no biggie. I get to my destination and go to change and everything in my bag is SOPPING wet. I was going to just let it go and figure it out.

I had a flight out with a connection before my destination Sunday. About 20 min before boarding (so I was at gate waiting) I recieved a notification that my connection was canceled. No biggie its a bigger airport but ran over to customer service. While waiting in line they changed my flight to TUESDAY. I pulled up a flight leaving the next day (monday) with tickets for purchase and customer service told me no they put me on a flight and that's that and weren't willing to give me anymore help. They also told me I could retrieve my luggage TWO DAYS LATER when I got in. I have two small children at home who I care for during the day and a job to get to. At this point I started searching for flights and making arrangements to find a babysitter for my kids at home, finding a new flight, getting somewhere to stay, rides and hygiene, clothing etc. I called and talk to a SWA rep and they said since it was NOT weather related there should be no issues getting reimbursed and that if I can find a flight sooner that I should be able to be reimbursed for that as well. Well about 2500 dollars later (not including what I had to pay a babysitter) and I recieve an email offering me a 150 dollar love voucher and told (in short) to pound sand for anything else other than my original refund. I would have rented a car and driven 15 hours had swa not led me to believe I would be receiving some form of reimbursement for at least SOME of my unexpected expenses. I'm so disgusted. I don't know what happened to southwest during covid but it was not good. On my flight back today I heard non stop southwest complaints. 

[floridaguy]

There are simply too many of these stories that come to this board.  I, for one, am disappointed in how Southwest handled your case.  I can only imagine the frustration and anxiety such an experience would yield.

Write to the CEO of Southwest airlines.  If he is going to make promises about doing better and having a better airline, let them reimburse you for all of your additional expenses.  When they burn another year's income smoothing this kind of thing over with passengers, things will change.

I regret hearing your story.  If I can help write a letter, let me know.

[SoCalFlyer97]

Hello! Since this forum is customer-to-customer, I would email Southwest or contact Customer Relations with a brief message outlining the incidents involving your trip as well as a line-item detail of all your accommodation costs accrued as a result of your flight being cancelled. This appears to be a controllable cancellation in which Southwest has committed to provide complimentary accommodation.

However, I find it strange that the gate CSA who rebooked your Sunday cancelled segment to Tuesday said "no" when you found a Monday transportation option and wanted to move forward with that. Normally, protocol would be for the CSA to refund you for the cancelled segment regardless of which fare class you booked so you can move forward with your Monday alternative. I would bring this up to Customer Relations.