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Mysterious Cancelled Flight

UpsetMommy
Explorer C

My daughter who is a freshman in college is finally coming home for Christmas.  SHe was booked to come home tomorrow.  She went to check in for her flight using her confirmation number and it didn't work.  She called her Dad who handled the purchase of the ticket.  He called Southwest who informed him the reservation was canceled!   SERIOULSY!!!!!!!!!!! How does a fight mysteriously get canceled?  Now they tell us they have to investigate and we have to buy a new ticket and the only thing they have is a flight on SUNDAY.    SO I lose 4 days with my daughter because something on their end happened.  They say if they find out through the investigation that its their fault he will get his money back.  I don't care about the money how about giving me the 4 days back I am losing with my child!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No compassion at all its just like oh well too bad.  Guess they figured if they cancel a few people here and there they can resell that seat for a much higher price.  Nice Southwest really nice.   This is just one more reason I refuse to fly your airline.  I travel for work and fly every week and got tired of late flights lost luggage guess nothing has changed now you lose reservations

8 REPLIES 8

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

bec102896
Aviator A

@UpsetMommy

 

I'm sorry to hear of the situation that occurred. 

 

I would HIGHLY recommend you reach out to customer relations in the morning if you haven't already by calling 855-234-4654 as they have more power to help compared to the reservationd department. You could also message southwest on Facebook or Twitter as well and they can try to help 

 

I would also check the email address that the original confirmation was sent to in case a flight cancelled email was sent as well 

 

About the 4 days I recommend checking back on the website in case a seat opens up on another flight before the 4 days and you could continue with the investigation

 

Blake 

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

UpsetMommy
Explorer C

Ex-Husband called and was on the phone for over an hour and they said the best they could do was Sunday.  The email they claim the confirmation went to is not even the one associated with the account.  

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

UpsetMommy
Explorer C

Blake I have posted on FB as suggested will be calling in the am.  I also send them a message on Messenger.  Maybe something will happen all I can do is pray.  Thank you for the information Have A Merry Christmas

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

Passenger1C
Aviator C

@UpsetMommy I can feel the disappointment in your words reading this. I feel for you, and wish things would have turned out differently. I know how valuable time is, and the reality of never getting that back. My experience with SW is they aim to make it up to you when situations arise. I hope you experience the same type of service.

 

Please try to remember when your daughter does get home, to focus on the remaining time you have, and not this experience.  

 

As @bec102896 suggested, follow up with SW, and share your story.  It’s worth hearing! 

 

Happy Holidays!

 


SWA Passenger, Community Champion

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

dfwskier
Aviator A

@UpsetMommy wrote:

My daughter who is a freshman in college is finally coming home for Christmas.  SHe was booked to come home tomorrow.  She went to check in for her flight using her confirmation number and it didn't work.  She called her Dad who handled the purchase of the ticket.  He called Southwest who informed him the reservation was canceled!   SERIOULSY!!!!!!!!!!! How does a fight mysteriously get canceled?  Now they tell us they have to investigate and we have to buy a new ticket and the only thing they have is a flight on SUNDAY.    SO I lose 4 days with my daughter because something on their end happened.  They say if they find out through the investigation that its their fault he will get his money back.  I don't care about the money how about giving me the 4 days back I am losing with my child!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No compassion at all its just like oh well too bad.  Guess they figured if they cancel a few people here and there they can resell that seat for a much higher price.  Nice Southwest really nice.   This is just one more reason I refuse to fly your airline.  I travel for work and fly every week and got tired of late flights lost luggage guess nothing has changed now you lose reservations


Hello.

 

I agree with the other posters, you and your daughter are in a bad situation. I'm sorry that it is impacting your Christmas plans.

 

That being said, I'm sure this is some kind of mistake. Someone called to cancel a reservation and Southwest canceled the wrong one, or there was some type of computer glitch. No airline would intentionally cancel a reservation so it coud sell the seat to someone else for more money.

 

The reason Southwest could not get your daughter out before Sunday is probably because it is sold out til then. It can't give your daughter a seat that it does not have.

 

So where to from here? I have several suggestions

 

a) If your daughter is in an area that is close to other airports that Southwest serves, you could see

whether there is availability  from the other airport.

 

b) Southwest might be willing to create a non-standard connection that allows your daughter to get home

 

c) People cancel reservations at the last minute all the time. You could ask that your daughter be placed on a standby list. I'm not sure the airline can do this at any place other than the airport, but you can ask. Alternatively, you could check online regularly to see if you find this happening.

 

d) If all else fails, your daughter could fly another airline (Amtrak?).

 

e) In future conversations with the airline you should be pretty insistent about receiving a fairly substantial travel vouture to compensate for the trouble and additional cost your are likely to incur.

 

I wish you luck.

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

We on the community would need a little more info to offer suggestions such as which airport pair, maybe someone will have an idea for an alternate route.

 

The idea that you mentioned later down the list that the email address was incorrect is a red flag though, did the father not get confirmations of any of the activity?

 

The confirmation number and name may have been sent to someone at that wrong email address who could have canceled or changed the flight by having that information, and which isn't going to turn out to be Southwest's fault if the email originally provided was incorrect on the father's part.

 

I would confirm that you still have the travel funds available from the cancelation as well, obviously if Southwest doesn't end up refunding the whole amount.

 

If you are willing to buy a new last-minute ticket in the meantime (hopefully using the travel funds), I'd recommend to head to the airport and take whatever is available, and then try to standby on something earlier if available although any checked luggage would be on the ticketed flight.

 

That's depending how difficult it is for your daughter to get to the airport of course...risky if that's a multiple-hour trip or has to take a Lyft or Uber, or if you are at a destination that only sees a few flights a day...to pull one out of thin air let's say Pensacola there are only a few flights a day to BNA and HOU and if they are sold out, you never get the chance to standby other than being at the airport and ready.

 

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

RobertGary1
Explorer C

I hope that SWA doesn't miss the bigger issue here. Its not about rebooking this one person. Its the repeated problem that SWA's system doesn't email you immidately when this type of thing happens. When you book you get flooded with emails to rent cars, etc but if a flight or reservation is cancelled by SWA its total silence.

 

This is a computer bug and needs to be addressed as such.

 

-Robert

Re: Mysterious Cancelled Flight

dfwskier
Aviator A

@RobertGary1 wrote:

I hope that SWA doesn't miss the bigger issue here. Its not about rebooking this one person. Its the repeated problem that SWA's system doesn't email you immidately when this type of thing happens. When you book you get flooded with emails to rent cars, etc but if a flight or reservation is cancelled by SWA its total silence.

 

This is a computer bug and needs to be addressed as such.

 

-Robert


Actully, Robert, Southwest does send an e-mail to the address tied to the reservtion the second a reservation is made, changed or cancelled. I have literally hundreds of examples in my e-mail folders.