@Tagreen wrote:
Once again Southwest ruined a vacation
I have TSA precheck and CLEAR. I have a companion pass for my wife and am A-List Priority.
After the first time Southwest ruined a trip, I contacted Customer Service and then Homeland Security. Neither found any issues with my credentials. But they issued me a redress number to help avoid this type of thing in the future.
I was born in US and have lived in the US my entire life. I am an elected official in a U.S. city. But for the second time in less than 12 months Southwest has “randomly” selected me for secondary screening, prevented me from checking in online, cancelled my TSA pre-check for the entire trip, and pulled me out of the queue to board a plane. Neither time finding any reason for delaying me.
I was a math major in college so I know mathematically it is near impossible for this to be random. Have taken the same trip in between these two Southwest flights, but flew American Airlines with absolutely no issues.
To ice the cake Southwest also pulled my checked bag causing me to wait until carousel was clear. When I went to baggage services was greeted by an associate obviously having an equally bad day or just looking for opportunities to be offended. They provided no update on baggage tracking that the bag was pulled and do not even attempt to notify a traveler that their bag will not be on the carousel.
Called customer service again and a very kind associate could find no reason for this and even had IT involved to see if they could determine causes but nothing.
Southwest apparently has my profile targeted. Won’t give you the chance to ruin another vacation.
Oh no...This would not be something I would ever want to end up in on any travel trip, especially being a member in a DHS trusted traveler program.
This forum is customer-to-customer; this board will not be able to resolve your redress status. Southwest is also most likely not at fault too for both of your trips; this appears to be a repeat misidentification issue with the DHS. However, by the looks of this, it looks like you already did your homework with the DHS following the first trip and getting a redress number and a case established.
I would first confirm and doublecheck your Redress number was correctly entered and linked to your Rapid Rewards account as this would be key. As you already called Southwest, it is most likely correct but do one more check on this to make sure everything matches to the letter. The name and number of the Redress case must match the traveler's name (similar name and KTN-matching process as with PreCheck).
Absolutely unlikely Southwest would ever be the party "targeting" DHS Trusted Travelers for constant secondary inspections, this would be a DHS misidentification; hence the Redress process. If your Redress number is properly linked, entered correctly, and names match, I would then inquire with DHS on the status of your Redress case to ensure that it is still active, valid, and live. If it is, it appears there's a disconnect somewhere within the DHS system that would need to resolved. At that point, I would inquire about this with DHS and document everything that occurred at the airport in conjunction with your redress status. I would advise DHS that you already attempted to troubleshoot this with Southwest. As a local elected official, DHS may be able to escalate this for you too:
https://www.dhs.gov/dhs-trip
Hope this helps.
