Voucher for cancelled flight - can it be exchanged for refund?

[nsallowsa]

We had the worst experience last week at BWI. Our connecting flight was delayed due to "air traffic control" issues. 4,000 flights cancelled that day, and I get that airlines have problems sometimes, but this is a service I paid for and did not receive. Originally scheduled to leave for Portland at 4:15pm it was delayed twice and then cancelled at 8:30pm. This after waiting in the airport since 11:00 am. they had to know there were issues prior to 4:15pm. They offered us a flight TWO DAYS LATER!!!!! Lose two MORE days of our vacation and hotel rooms? We barely had time to get a car rented before the rental agency closed. We had to get a hotel in Baltimore for $100, drive nine hours, pay $35 in tolls and lost $300 on our booked hotel in Kennebunkport. The car alone cost $220! Our luggage was not sent  to the Portland airport until much later. Southwest sent me a $150 travel voucher. This is unacceptable! I will never use SW again and want a cash refund. Is there any recourse after they send you a travel voucher?

[TheMiddleSeat]

Sounds a perfect situation to have purchased travel insurance.  Some credit cards also provide coverage for delays and cancellations so take a look and see if you have any coverage.

You acknowledge the issue was not isolated to Southwest so how are they to blame for any of it?  You were provided a voucher as a gesture of good will and rescheduled on the next available flight.  Southwest can't just magically make seats available on earlier flights.

--TheMiddleSeat

[DancingDavidE · Accepted solution]

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@nsallowsa wrote:

We had the worst experience last week at BWI. Our connecting flight was delayed due to "air traffic control" issues. 4,000 flights cancelled that day, and I get that airlines have problems sometimes, but this is a service I paid for and did not receive. Originally scheduled to leave for Portland at 4:15pm it was delayed twice and then cancelled at 8:30pm. This after waiting in the airport since 11:00 am. they had to know there were issues prior to 4:15pm. They offered us a flight TWO DAYS LATER!!!!! Lose two MORE days of our vacation and hotel rooms? We barely had time to get a car rented before the rental agency closed. We had to get a hotel in Baltimore for $100, drive nine hours, pay $35 in tolls and lost $300 on our booked hotel in Kennebunkport. The car alone cost $220! Our luggage was not sent  to the Portland airport until much later. Southwest sent me a $150 travel voucher. This is unacceptable! I will never use SW again and want a cash refund. Is there any recourse after they send you a travel voucher?

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You'll have to keep the voucher, there's no way for Southwest to turn that into cash.

If you like Southwest you can give it to one of your friends, or if you don't like Southwest you can give it to one of your enemies. 

If the flight was canceled and you never rebooked it, then you might be able to get a refund of the cost of the flight - that's the extend of a refund for service not provided. This might depend on how things were left as far as rebooking and whether you had indicated you wanted a travel fund.

Use the Contact Southwest Customer Service options to reach out to the airline directly to discuss a refund if you didn't get this fare refunded already when the flight was canceled/rebooked.

[douginKY]

We had a similar experience recently.  SWA cancelled our flight, rebooked us for three days later, which was not possible for us so we bought tickets on Delta, then cancelled the rebooked SWA flight.  The system issued flight credit so I emailed and asked for a refund instead, which was granted.  One of us was issued $100 in travel credit after complaining about the experience.