NEVER USE SOUTHWEST HOTEL BOOKINGS

[abpecunes]

NEVER USE SOUTHWEST HOTEL BOOKINGS.  It is a scam, and you never receive email confirmations. Not in your email or junk or spam. You cannot find the hotel in your Southwest.com account. It is nowhere!!!! After you book, you are "forbidden to cancel" by Southwest Hotels. Even if you try and cancel weeks and months before check-in, Southwest Hotels claims your money is non-refundable. Southwest Hotels says, "They will do everything to work on [your] behalf (I have this in writing from Southwest), to refund your money when you cancel," and they LIE that the "hotel said they could not refund due to hotel policy" (I have this in writing). I contacted the hotel and researched its policy online, and they said they charge 48 hours before cancellation.  I had canceled 96 hours before. The hotel also advised me that they do not have my money and that the third-party Southwest Hotels- does. When I, for the 100th time through phone calls and emails, finally got in touch with a live person at Southwest Hotel Concierge, again, they said that the Hotel's policy said it was not refundable (I have this in emails). Why would anyone book a hotel through Southwest Hotels if it is non-refundable when they could book directly with the Hotel of their choice and get a full refund? Southwest still has my money and is still claiming the Hotel does. Which hotel, I ask? They said a "third supplier"? What? What third supplier? They said, "It just says supplier"? Again, I say, who is your "supplier"? They said, "It just says supplier"? WHAT? I have gotten the runaround for over a day. I am now on day 2 of trying to clarify who, What, and Why I can't get a refund or get my hotel room back (since I paid for it and now Southwest Hotels canceled it and has claimed it back along with my money). WHAT IS GOING ON????? PLEASE HELP IF YOU HAVE FOUND A RESOLUTION. 

[SoCalFlyer97 · Accepted solution]

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@abpecunes wrote:

NEVER USE SOUTHWEST HOTEL BOOKINGS.  It is a scam, and you never receive email confirmations. Not in your email or junk or spam. You cannot find the hotel in your Southwest.com account. It is nowhere!!!! After you book, you are "forbidden to cancel" by Southwest Hotels. Even if you try and cancel weeks and months before check-in, Southwest Hotels claims your money is non-refundable. Southwest Hotels says, "They will do everything to work on [your] behalf (I have this in writing from Southwest), to refund your money when you cancel," and they LIE that the "hotel said they could not refund due to hotel policy" (I have this in writing). I contacted the hotel and researched its policy online, and they said they charge 48 hours before cancellation.  I had canceled 96 hours before. The hotel also advised me that they do not have my money and that the third-party Southwest Hotels- does. When I, for the 100th time through phone calls and emails, finally got in touch with a live person at Southwest Hotel Concierge, again, they said that the Hotel's policy said it was not refundable (I have this in emails). Why would anyone book a hotel through Southwest Hotels if it is non-refundable when they could book directly with the Hotel of their choice and get a full refund? Southwest still has my money and is still claiming the Hotel does. Which hotel, I ask? They said a "third supplier"? What? What third supplier? They said, "It just says supplier"? Again, I say, who is your "supplier"? They said, "It just says supplier"? WHAT? I have gotten the runaround for over a day. I am now on day 2 of trying to clarify who, What, and Why I can't get a refund or get my hotel room back (since I paid for it and now Southwest Hotels canceled it and has claimed it back along with my money). WHAT IS GOING ON????? PLEASE HELP IF YOU HAVE FOUND A RESOLUTION. 

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Hello!

I think the communication chain broke somewhere when you attempted to get the refund. The policy is if you booked a pre-paid (assuming Points Plus property) room on the Southwest Hotels portal and the room option was marked as "Free Cancellation until (DATE/TIME)", you should be able to cancel directly through the portal with your confirmation number and guest name.

https://secure.southwesthotels.com/myreservations.html

If you don't have your confirmation number or the automated system give you trouble, I would try calling through again and clarify the following:

• Date of Reservation + Hotel Reserved
• Date you attempted to cancel
• Advertised deadline date and time that was given to you for free cancellation

concierge@southwesthotels.com
1-844-782-9792
773-770-4953

Note that Southwest Hotels uses the Bookings.com engine to reserve rooms. I've used this portal several times and had no issues with the Points Plus properties including one I had to cancel after finding better pricing; I can't speak for the non-Points Plus bookings. Confirmation emails usually come in either immediately or within a few hours after booking. I always save the confirmation webpage and note cancellation deadlines too in case I have a problem getting the email.

Anyway, try contacting SW Hotels again. If you made the attempt to cancel a reservation that was advertised as a refundable property on Southwest Hotels within the defined timeframe and you were not able to cancel the booking successfully even after attempting to contact Southwest Hotels, you may be able to dispute the charge with your bank.

[jksobonya · Accepted solution]

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@abpecunes wrote:

Not in your email or junk or spam. You cannot find the hotel in your Southwest.com account. It is nowhere!!!! 

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You're not going to find your hotel reservation on Southwest.com because - if you paid attention while booking - you are actually directed to SouthwestHotels.com - a different site altogether. Your hotel reservation is there and can be modified/cancelled there.

I have always gotten an e-mail confirmation immediately after booking. 

If you didn't get an e-mail, you can have it resent here: https://secure.southwesthotels.com/myreservations.html?aid=2077218&ref=SWHTL 

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@abpecunes wrote:

 Why would anyone book a hotel through Southwest Hotels if it is non-refundable when they could book directly with the Hotel of their choice and get a full refund?

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This fully depends on the type of hotel you selected when booking. Many are, indeed, non-refundable. It very clearly says in the terms that it is non-refundable when you are booking the room, and that you will be charged immediately as well. If you don't want this. You need to look for rooms that say "FREE CANCELLATION - No PrePayment needed" - these rooms allow free cancellations and don't charge you until you stay. Other options might just say "Free Cancellation" which means you are charged when you book, but if you cancel before X date, you can get your money back.

Of course, it goes without saying that even if you book with the hotel directly, many times they have cheaper rates that are non-refundable vs. the standard rate which is refundable. It all depends on what you book. 

--Jessica

[Dinelam2020]

I am faced with the same issue and tried to get the reservation resent and it never came through.  Luckily I don't need to cancel my reservation and just wanted to confirm it before going to the hotel. I spent hours waiting on the phone for them and never was able to speak to a representative.  This is truly bad and i will NEVER book hotels with southwest again. I  called the hotel and they have my reservation.  I am praying that all goes well and I don't  end up getting charged again or that when I get there it get cancelled. What a mess. I could have gotten my stay for a cheaper price elsewhere too but counted on the points which I was promised and now already know that was a total scam. NEVER AGAIN!!!

[SoCalFlyer97]

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@Dinelam2020 wrote:

I am faced with the same issue and tried to get the reservation resent and it never came through.  Luckily I don't need to cancel my reservation and just wanted to confirm it before going to the hotel. I spent hours waiting on the phone for them and never was able to speak to a representative.  This is truly bad and i will NEVER book hotels with southwest again. I  called the hotel and they have my reservation.  I am praying that all goes well and I don't  end up getting charged again or that when I get there it get cancelled. What a mess. I could have gotten my stay for a cheaper price elsewhere too but counted on the points which I was promised and now already know that was a total scam. NEVER AGAIN!!!

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Hello-

Sorry to hear you've had issues with receiving your Confirmation details. As a fellow traveler, try calling the listed concierge number again via the Southwest Hotels website but at a different time of day and/or day of the week. It's likely when you called, they had a high call volume and could not take your call but they do respond.

Note as general advice that both email and text communications are not foolproof and I've had times when legitimate emails/texts I'm expecting do not reach my inbox as they sometimes get mistakenly filtered or blocked by security software.

As a remedy to this and this goes for any reservation from any provider whether be hotels, air travel, and even online food delivery orders: Always take a screenshot and/or save the confirmation page on the web page before closing the window. In the case of Southwest Hotels, that would be the "You're All Set page" and the PDF receipt from that page. Yes, I agree it would be nice for upcoming SW Hotels/Booking.com reservations to appear on my SW Rapid Rewards account profile for ease of access (I think that would doable under an agreement with Booking.com) but the screenshot or saving-the-page solution is the alternative we have as travelers for now.

[gsking]

Agreed that they make things a bit difficult.  My booking was through booking.com who then went through ahoya or whatever and it was difficult to find my booking information.  But I finally got ahold of the southwest concierge (listed below) which was very helpful.

 The only reason IMHO to book through them is to get the extra points properties to pad you CPQ points to get next years CP.  I will be taking a flight to Vegas in December if necessary 😉

[BellaHarris]

Thanks for the info, I will keep it in my mind.