Locating Unused Travel Funds

[LindseyD]

The correct link is https://www.southwest.com/flight/travel-funds-search.html.

Apologies for any frustration, @pegjust

[ks4562]

This link only tells you the funds that are available once you know the confirmation number.  The problem is that there is no easy way to locate the old confirmation number unless it is saved in your email.  It is not listed under past flights if it was a cancelled trip.

[kbridges]

I agree -- This link only tells you the funds that are available once you know the confirmation number.  The problem is that there is no easy way to locate the old confirmation number unless it is saved in your email.  It is not listed under past flights if it was a cancelled trip.

How can we find out if we have travel funds if we don't have the canceled flight's confirmation number???

[chgoflyer]

Phone reps used to be able to look up travel funds using the crredit card used to for the original booking, but this new notification seems to indicate that this is no longer the case:

I think it's probably a good idea to keep a manual record of all confirmation numbers going forward.

[bgubs14]

I usually check in on my mobile device so I can always look back at my confirmation number for any flight as its hard to do this for the paper editions

[rosa463]

Lindsey ....

My dear Southwest employee.

I'm a rapid fan of SWA.

I preach to the nonconverted, and I battle my husband who is a fan of another airline.

I have to tell you, I've been an A-list member off and on.. FOREVER. I have a family of 6 and we commute between Tampa and San Juan.

And this is my ONE GRIPE with Southwest... 

I really really feel that you all do this on purpose... since i"m a business person and an accountant by training i imagine there's some reserve on the books and you get to take it into income when the stuff expires.

When you take 20-30 flights a year, and you cancel 5, and you're at an airport, and you're doing it on the app, or on your phone because you are late to a meeting or whatever, you have nowhere to write down what you did or confirm numbers.  and later you just forget. I have a spreadsheet on my laptop to keep track of this. and i think that's ridiculous.

It feels like you guys are doing everything you can to make it hard for us to remember that we have money sitting out there... Maybe i'm wrong but it still feels that way.

I would prefer that you HELP me and REMIND me I have funds... I would LOVE YOU SO MUCH MORE.

Please fix this, it is NOT in keeping with your values and all the other things that you do... It's always puzzled me why you make this so very hard.  I can also say that your main competitor on the route I fly most DOES tell me when i book that i have a credit.  

Two choices- 1 ) make it easy for me to look it up OR PREFERABLY 2) remind me that i have unused funds when i am making a reservation... especially for A List people...

Otherwise, know that those of us who are frequent flyers, at the point we go type in our SWA Visa number, hesitate and ask ourselves... "do I have any unused funds?" then we have to dig through our emails and look on our spreadsheets and even then, we're not 100 percent sure... and in that moment, we hate SWA for taking up all this time, and we recognize that at some point, you've probably taken our money even though we are undyingly loyal. And that hurts.

Rant ended.

[LindseyD]

@rosa463, 

We hear you - this is a frequent request from our Customers. The great thing about the Southwest Community is that it provides a platform for Customers to tell us what they like, don't like, and want to see changed. Thank you for chiming in on this topic! 

[SouthwestSue]

Please take action.  This policy borders on shadiness!  As I commented previously, my family's trip was interrupted and cost were raised because Southwest cancelled the flight on my husband and son.  Their flight kept on getting delayed until it was finally cancelled.  By this time, there were no other flights leaving for their destination.  It was a mad scramble to get a flight out the next morning.  It cost our family the cost of more expensive replacement tickets which had to be purchased at the last minute, a roundtrip fair taxi fare back to our home, and lost valuable time at a family function.  The reason for the flight cancellation was because Southwest did not have a flight crew.  This is something that was totally within Southwest's control and they should be responsible. More frustrating is this Travel Fund search excercise -- come on, why can't Southwest just show this information on "My Account" and apply it towards the next flight I book?  I think this would be a good business practice and straight forward.  This current scheme is frankly really shady and not good business practice.  Please fix this.  In the alternative, please let us know how much of these Travel Funds gets unused by your travelers - I think we should know how Southwest profits from this policy.

[franktravel]

[chgoflyer]

?