Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Wrong Inbound Dates of Travel

Wildcat
Explorer C

Family member. booked 4 round trip tickets.  A few days before travel realized dates coming home incorrect.  Called customer care for help; explain honest mistake - first time booking, last time flight at least 5-6 years.  He was so excited about finally being able to take his wife and 2 children for a real vacation.  Agent much less excited...changed flights and  that will be another $500.  I would have thought a goodwill gesture would have been an option ? ! ?

4 REPLIES 4

Re: Wrong Inbound Dates of Travel

dfwskier
Aviator A

Hello.

 

Lots of people try to change their flights for various reasons. Some are legitimate. Some are excuses.

 

If your friend had realized the error immeditely after buying the tickets, the claim would have had greater credibility. I've done that -- Realizing I'd made a mistake  minutes after hitting the "buy ticket." button. In those cases the airline has been pretty acomodating. Waiting a significant amount of time since the intial purchase just looks more suspcious.

 

All I can suggest is to try customer relations again. You might get the same response as the first time, or maybe a different one.  My guess is that you'll get the same response. You won't know unless you try.

 

Good luck.

Re: Wrong Inbound Dates of Travel

Wildcat
Explorer C
Thank you for your kind reply.

Re: Wrong Inbound Dates of Travel

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@dfwskier wrote:

Lots of people try to change their flights for various reasons. Some are legitimate. Some are excuses.

 

If your friend had realized the error immeditely after buying the tickets, the claim would have had greater credibility. I've done that -- Realizing I'd made a mistake  minutes after hitting the "buy ticket." button. In those cases the airline has been pretty acomodating. Waiting a significant amount of time since the intial purchase just looks more suspcious.

 

All I can suggest is to try customer relations again. You might get the same response as the first time, or maybe a different one.  My guess is that you'll get the same response. You won't know unless you try.

 

Good luck.


That's probably the best suggestion to reach out by customer relations or twitter, but if the family member has already paid for the change then I think it would be difficult to reverse it. 

 

It's complicated since there is a 24-hour window to refund any mistakes if it was realized right away, and going back now it would be difficult to know the price for the new flights compared to the price of the booked flights on the incorrect day - they may have been the same, the other flight may have already been more expensive, maybe cheaper, hard to say now.

 

Hundreds or thousands of people change their tickets on short notice every day, so although it is a traumatic event for your family member this is normal business for Southwest (and the other airlines). At least there isn't a change fee, so I hope that everyone had a successful travel and good luck if he chooses to reach out to Southwest for a follow up. I wouldn't be too optimistic, but if you don't ask the chances are zero.

 

 

 

 

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

Re: Wrong Inbound Dates of Travel

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

If you're a risk taker you could always show up at the check-in counter on the day you meant to fly and say "oops, I didn't realize I booked another day", but that's a BIG gamble and you could either be added to the flight as standby (if seats are available) or get stuck paying for all new tickets at very last minute fares ($$$ ouch!).

 

It's frustrating to have to pay the additional $500, but very good that you caught the mistake before it was too late. Change fees on other airlines can be $200 per ticket plus the fare difference.

 

--TheMiddleSeat