Changing travel dates no change fee?

[ac1921]

 Hi,

My husband and I will be traveling to San Jose in October of this year. My dates are secure. However, we are not currently sure how much time my husband will get off for work, so we might have to change his outbound flight DAY (i.e. we may book for travel on a Monday, but then he might have to leave on a Tuesday thus needing to rebook). 

My questions are:

1. Are we able to change our travel plans this way and fall under the "no change fee" policy Southwest has?

2. If so, what is the best way to do this (would we have to cancel or can we just change the date of travel without getting a fee? Should I book him on a separate itinerary or does it matter?)

3. What happens if I want to book our travel plans completely on Southwest points?

Thanks!

[DancingDavidE]

Assuming you have Wanna Get Away fares, you can cancel and rebook or change the flight, it should be the same total cost either way. If you have a refundable fare, to maintain refundability you must cancel and rebook. Changes to refundable fares make them non-refundable. 

There isn't a change fee, but you do have to pay the current price of the ticket - i.e. if the change takes place close to the date of travel it will be likely for the current price to be higher than what you booked today, you'd have to pay the difference although there isn't any additional fee for changing the ticket. This would apply equally to cash or points, if you booked on points then you'd have to increase the points as necessary - if you don't have many extra points then don't book your husband's ticket with points as you might not be able to cover the cost increase, book yours with the points first. You can also book one-ways to allow use of points on three of the legs, and pay cash for only your husband's outbound leg that might be changed.

I guess technically if you did book your husband all with points and then didn't have enough to change the day, you could refund the points and then buy a ticket if necessary which would let you use points first, and then if you had to pay cash it would be the same as paying cash all along.

I don't know how it works with two people on one confirmation. I would guess that it is possible to change one person's flight, but might require calling instead of self-service online, the result may be to split the person off into a separate confirmation.

I'd suggest you may want to book separate confirmations if you know that there is a chance your husband's flight would be changed so that you can do it easily online.