Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Upgrading to Business Select when using Corporate Travel Program

cybrandt
Explorer C

I am curious if you can purchase a ticket via a corporate travel program (such as Egencia) and then call SWA direct to upgrade the ticke to Business Select? I need that extra multiplier to keep my A Plus! 

 

Thanks, 

Cyndi

3 REPLIES 3

Re: Upgrading to Business Select when using Corporate Travel Program

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

I think that is between you and your corporate policy as far as reimbursing the original ticket, Southwest won't object to this if you pay for the BS upgrade on your own.

 

Edit: the prior purchase will be non-refundable, and if you upgrade the whole ticket there will be a portion refundable and a portion non-refundable...or does the whole thing become non-refundable? I'm confusing myself. There may be a technicality where you could cancel the original and rebook using travel funds to maintain the refundable portion if upgrading the existing ticket results in the whole thing being non-refundable.

 

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

Re: Upgrading to Business Select when using Corporate Travel Program

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

If an individual wanted to do this "upgrade" they could easily call Southwest who would cancel the original purchase and use the travel funds towards payment of the BS fare. I don't see why it would be different when booking through a travel system unless the system gets notified that the original purchase was canceled which might create problems or if only certain people are authorized to make changes, but you'd think the passenger could make changes. Perhaps initiating a change to the original flight instead of canceling would be better? 

 

And to clarify refundability in this case, if the original purchase was WGA then it's non refundable to begin with. If Anytime was purchased, it's refundable, but when "upgrading" you're better off not refunding and having funds held as travel funds so they can be used immediately towards the purchase of the BS fare. If there's an actual refund they would go back to the travel system and the flyer would be back at step one.

 

Mixing non refundable and refundable money makes all the money non refundable so if the original purchase was WGA, the new BS ticket would be non refundable.

Re: Upgrading to Business Select when using Corporate Travel Program

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

 

And to clarify refundability in this case, if the original purchase was WGA then it's non refundable to begin with. If Anytime was purchased, it's refundable, but when "upgrading" you're better off not refunding and having funds held as travel funds so they can be used immediately towards the purchase of the BS fare. If there's an actual refund they would go back to the travel system and the flyer would be back at step one.

 

Mixing non refundable and refundable money makes all the money non refundable so if the original purchase was WGA, the new BS ticket would be non refundable.


 

This isn't completely correct.

 

This situation is complicated by Southwest's recent policy change regarding "refundable" fares, combined with the passenger and purchaser being two separate entities.

 

Anytime fare:

If the original fare was Anytime, and you change the flight to Business Select, you will lose the ability to get a refund at any future date. An employer would likely be upset to learn that they can't get their funds back if necessary, when they had purchased a refundable fare in the first place for exactly that reason. The funds would now be locked into the name of the passenger.

 

If you cancel the Anytime fare, hoping to upgrade to BS, the refund would be sent to the purchaser. Meaning that this avenue of upgrade isn't possible in this scenario.

 

Wanna Get Away fare:

If the original fare was WGA, and you change the flight to Business Select, the original portion of the fare will remain non-refundable (locked in the name of the passenger), but the new funds added to purchase Business Select will be refundable (assuming no further changes are made to the itinerary), back to the form of purchase used for the "upgrade."

 

If you cancel the WGA fare, hoping to upgrade to BS, you can use the funds from the original booking towards the BS one, and everything essentially works the same as above.

 

NOTE:

If you upgrade to a Business Select ticket from a Wanna Get Away fare that you currently have, the original Wanna Get Away portion of the ticket will remain nonrefundable. Any new funds that you apply to make up the difference will be refundable, as long as you make no further changes to the itinerary.

 

The absurd "refundable" policy change has unnecessarily complicated things. One hopes Southwest follows through on their promise to address the system limitation that allegedly caused this strange policy change to be put in place. And soon.