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Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

DaveB585
Explorer C

Made original reservation on Feb 23rd for flights in July.  

 

Covid hit. 

 

Cancelled and rebooked a different trip for December. 

 

Covid still around. 

 

Today I tried to rebook for July 2021, and it's showing ~$100 in Travel Funds expiring in September 2022, and $1,300 in Travel Funds expires on Feb 22nd.  How the heck was I supposed to use Travel Funds from Feb 2020 to Feb 2021?

7 REPLIES 7

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

dfwskier
Aviator A

SW extended all travel funds created between 3/1/20 and 9/7/20. Unlike "normal" times that means any flight cancelled between those dates.

 

If I were to guess what is happening, my guess would be that you cancelled your December trip after 9/7/20. Funds tied to that cancellation would expire one year from the original purchase date.

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

elijahbrantley
Aviator A

Agreed. This link outlines how different travel (extended) funds might have different dates.

 

"It’s important to note, while these unused travel funds will be available until September 7, 2022, once the funds are used to make a purchase, the expiration date of the travel funds will then follow our normal ticketing rules and will expire 12 months from the date of purchase."

 

-A List, Companion Pass holder

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

chgoflyer
Aviator A

 


@dfwskier wrote:

SW extended all travel funds created between 3/1/20 and 9/7/20. Unlike "normal" times that means any flight cancelled between those dates.

 

If I were to guess what is happening, my guess would be that you cancelled your December trip after 9/7/20. Funds tied to that cancellation would expire one year from the original purchase date.

 

@elijahbrantley wrote:

Agreed. This link outlines how different travel (extended) funds might have different dates.

 

"It’s important to note, while these unused travel funds will be available until September 7, 2022, once the funds are used to make a purchase, the expiration date of the travel funds will then follow our normal ticketing rules and will expire 12 months from the date of purchase."

 


So, for clarity:

 

If the December flight used 2022 extended funds, and then was cancelled sometime after September 7, 2020, the new expiration would be one year from the date the December flight was booked -- not the original expiration date in February. This suggests that those funds were never extended in the first place.

 

 

 

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@DaveB585 wrote:

Made original reservation on Feb 23rd for flights in July.  

 

Covid hit. 

 

Cancelled and rebooked a different trip for December. 

 

Covid still around. 

 

Today I tried to rebook for July 2021, and it's showing ~$100 in Travel Funds expiring in September 2022, and $1,300 in Travel Funds expires on Feb 22nd.  How the heck was I supposed to use Travel Funds from Feb 2020 to Feb 2021?


 

 

Unfortunately, you're a victim of how Southwest functionally handled travel funds during the time they offered their covid accommodations. But, there may be some help for you. This is a bit complicated...

 

Travel funds from flights that were cancelled March 1 thru September 7, 2020 were extended until September 7, 2022. Functionally, this happened overnight -- the expiration date wasn't updated immediately, they were all batch processed overnight. Meaning that if you cancelled but then rebooked immediately, before the funds were extended overnight, those funds were never actually extended -- even though they should have been.

 

When you cancelled that July trip, but then immediately used some of the funds to book the new December trip, the funds used for the new booking were never extended, but the remaining balance was extended, overnight, to 2022. That's how you have $100 that was extended and $1,300 that wasn't.

 

The good news is that Southwest is aware of this type of situation, and has the ability to correct it.

 

"Customer Relations are asking Customers whose situations fall within the above scenario to reach out to them for assistance."

 

Contact Customer Relations 

(I recommend via Twitter or Facebook direct message.)

 

You'll need to be clear: You cancelled your original booking sometime between March 1 and September 7, 2020, but rebooked immediately, so your funds were never extended by the system.

 

Hope this helps!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

NOLA1206
Explorer A

Don't kid yourself into thinking that customer service will help...they are useless. In my case, my TF expired and I was fully aware and accepting, that for $100.00, I could extend my funds for 6 months and I had up to 6 months in which to do this. As I had been on hold for over 90 minutes waiting to speak with a customer service rep, just for verification because I knew this was not a posted policy, I decided to hang up and sent an email instead. Whoever the rep was, misread my email, thinking I was looking to make the extension and gave me a new expiration date, 6 MONTHS AND 3 DAYS, from my original expiration date!!!!! I HAD 6 MONTHS to do this, giving myself a year in actuality. So, I call customer service again, this time I got through after only waiting an hour and got a most pleasant rep on the phone who said she'll see what she can do.....NOTHING!!! NADA!!! ZILCH!!!  SEEMS THEY HAVE A RIDICULOUS POLICY WHERE THEY CAN'T CHANGE WHAT ANOTHER REP HAS DONE!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? SO A REP MAKES AN ERROR AND THEY CAN'T/WON'T FIX IT????  Oh how I loved SW and praised them to all my friends....well now they get NOTHING NADA ZILCH FROM ME!!!  SW, you need to fix your policies instead of hog tying your customers

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

@NOLA1206 you didn't mention being charged the typical $100 fee so it appears you received a free extension of your travel fund. Sure, that's perhaps not exactly what you wanted, but you should at least recognize Southwest was attempting to be nice. Maybe that's not what happened, but your message isn't exactly clear which makes me think your email to Southwest probably wasn't the clearest either. If your credit is still in the form of a travel fund then in theory you're still eligible to extend via the $100 conversion fee once the travel fund re-expires. Again, you weren't clear so I can't provide further information. For future contact I would recommend sending private messages to Southwest via Twitter or Facebook or using the live chat function in the Southwest app.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Why were some of my Travel Funds extended but others were not?

dfwskier
Aviator A

@Monreal5169 wrote:

@

 


When do Southwest travel funds expire? —This is a huge thing to know because some  year from the date of travel, which is not the case. 


 

When do travel fund expire ---

 

1)TFs created between 3/1/20 and 9/7/20 expire on 9/7/22

 

Outside of those dates

 

2)TF's from cash paid tickets expire 1 year from ticket purchase date

 

3)TFs created from tickets where a TF was used to pay for the ticket assume the expiration date of the TF that was used to pay for the ticket. - except if a TF with a 9/7/22 expiration date was used. If so then the expiration date is one year from the ticket purchase date.