Southwest Airlines Community

@elijahbrantley -   I check the valuations semi-weekly but they’re just not comparable to what I booked at.   For example -    I booked a Roundtrip flight in June for 7,836 points. The cost now is 11,448 points or $176 cash. The price went up about 30-40% for that trip.   I do check every other day though just in case rates drop to get a Travel Credit or points back for the changes.   But for me it looks like the majority of my trips have gone up 30% or more in price. I booked about 8 trips (And 2 for family) in a 3 day span in March because of how low the prices dropped.   It looks like also that points valuation has gone down.   An example would be - I booked a flight with a $49 cash rate for 2,468 points. Looking to my dates they have the $49 flight which is 3,033 points now though, a little over 20% Increase.   We have the Companion Pass too and travel with our little one so it comes in handy and just this year alone will save us probably $1,500 plus another $1,500 next year. ... View more

Southwest has long had this policy and in some situations it just requires a little looking into.   For example -    Say your flight out of SNA (John Wayne Airport) is cancelled and you’re offered to rebook at another airport. Your options are - ONT, LAX, BUR, or LGB. But SAN (San Diego) is left out of the options even though it’s only an hour from SNA.   If you’re in such a situation where SAN Airport (an hour away) has a workable flight why not reach out to their Executive Office who does have more power to make things happen than customer relations?   Not like you’re asking to be rerouted out of SFO or LAS (Las Vegas). I find it to be an entirely reasonable request considering the distance between airports and that they’d let you go to ONT, LAX, LGB, or BUR free of charge rebooking. ... View more

This would be a question poised for their Executive Office in Dallas. If you google it you’ll find the phone number.   My guess is they believe that the flights aren’t full or even half full yet, along with that they’re heavily sanitizing each plane between flights. Which now there’s huge gaps between flights.   Then there’s the issue of what to do if someone takes it off mid flight or takes it off for a minute because it hurts them. Do they (flight attendants) use their Federal Authority to issue an order that they need to keep it on? In which case failure to comply is a federal misdemeanor, not just a fine. Maybe they don’t trust their flight crews as much as Delta to exercise this extent of authority as it could cause negative national publicity.   There’s a lot of variables, a big one being how full flights are. From what I’m seeing a majority of flights are half full, or less.   But as I said call SW EO and you’ll get a more detailed answer maybe it’ll be “we plan to implement it in the coming weeks”. ... View more

Like to fly or to work for SW? lol ... View more

I would skip what the other poster said and speak only to their Executive Office in Dallas. If you google their number to SW Executive Office you'll find it. They are open 8am-5pm Central Time. Good Luck   Definitely a better shot than regular customer service as they have limited options available while Executive Office can do anything, either cover your flight with the original funds or issue a LUV voucher for the difference. ... View more

Our local grocery store is Target and they are not doing any of that and we're just fine.  ... View more

I think for mine (and I thought this was expensive based on what I paid for my last HOU-> LIR trip) it was either 32,000 points plus the $80 in international fees or $450 total.   My last one was 26,000 or 28,000. I fly from LAX to Houston stay in Houston a few days then I book Houston -> LIR then returning from LIR to LAX same day with a stop in Houston.   The bad thing though is if they cancel you then they only give you a 14 day window to rebook but how’s that possible of your July flight is cancelled and the next closest option is over 14 days away?  I haven’t been to Costa Rica in August/September I was booked for May when it’s not rainy season but that was cancelled. How is during these months? Since you mentioned it’s a regular trip. ... View more

If there needed to be an official policy in place then the U.S. Department of Transportation would issue a temporary order for airlines to do so.   If airline infection due to this was thought to be such a major thing it’d be on the news. But it’s not, because flights aren’t full or even close. Many flights have 20 people on them including the crew.   Ask Southwest how many seats are available on your flight if there’s not many and since your flight is in May you can rebook to another day for free.   If you’re that concerned don’t fly or go buy a biohazard suit. There’s literally no way to socially distance 6 feet on a plane. Even if you said everyone had to take a window seat and the other two can’t be seated because they’d be too close to person across the aisle then you’d be within 6 ft. of the person in front and behind you in the window seat.   It makes no sense to put a policy in place that isn’t realistic as there are 0 full flights, not one single one in the month of May on any route. Again we implore you to reach out to Southwest and ask how many seats are available on your flight my guess is it’s a minimum of 30, but there are likely to be 60 or more available. They’ll respond within minutes it’s not time consuming and you don’t have to wait on hold. But you’re not changing anyone’s mind here as the facts are that there aren’t any full flights or even close to full. ... View more

It’s extremely unlikely that flights on or around Memorial Day will even be over 50% capacity.   Now a month later at the end of June it’d be more likely to be over 50% and fuller as many routes have been whittled down to 1-2 flights a day compared to 10 previously.   You can always message SW on Facebook or Twitter and ask how many seats are available on a given flight and they’ll tell you. I asked and they said 66 seats were available on one flights and 123 on another. ... View more

A few things as I also have a trip planned to Liberia, Costa Rica.   1) How is it 40,000 points?? Also for international flights on Southwest the Cash Rate is much better you get like a points redemption value of 1.1 I believe after factoring in the international taxes and fees vs. the cash rate.   2) I am seeing direct flights resuming as of August 14th, not September. It’s likely a costly flight for Southwest and few people were planning on going in July.   My trip is on August 16th HOU -> LIR and there’s no planned changes for that. Usually if Southwest is going to make a change your reservation will still show as confirmed but it will be unavailable to new bookings. Which means it’s likely to be cancelled. ... View more

I like the way that you put it when you say those who play the “game” so to speak.   I usually travel on points so I hadn’t really looked into A-List because points trips don’t even count for the flight counter portion. I could fly 300 one way flights in a year and if they were all on points not earn status, which is one downfall of Southwest.   I’ve earned the Companion Pass twice in the last 5 years flying with them that’s about the only “game” I played. But since the announcement of SW adding in 10 flight credits toward A-List that ours you 40% of the way there. Which had me look further and see that A-List might actually be possible.   The only downside is I found this information too late as I made about 8 bookings with points in March when prices dropped to all time lows for future travel all the way through August. I wish now I would’ve paid the cash rates for those bookings.   Something notice though is that points since March have been devalued. In March I paid 2324 points for a One Way $49 flight that same flight is still $49 but it’s 2944 points. Over a 20% increase in points needed to book that same $49 flight. ... View more

Not saying I'm 100% one way or another just pointing out that this is an issue most people won't take into consideration which is why I made this discussion post.   If you don't travel often then sure go for the points, but if you fly with SW and know you will then I'd say keep the credit to earn points and progress towards status. ... View more

File a DOT complaint you'll get your refund it's fairly quick to do. ... View more

Yeah, I suppose it’s just a little baffling how the system comes up with that at all though even for Southwest’s Customer Service.   That sounds like a long haul.  ... View more

I’m not looking for a refund and I understand rerouting due to COVID-19 but the routes they put me on are non-existent. If you read my whole post you’d see I mention the availability of other flights on the same day but they opted for one that’s not even listed. Which is very strange for SW.   As far as Chat I’ve tried but it’s always unavailable 😞 FB is nice for small things but my situation they said I need to call. ... View more

Can I ask the dates of travel? It seems this route has been cancelled for most dates in May, but now through May 2nd are available. After that nothing for LGA or Long Island. It looks like Long Island resumes back to Houston on May 18th. But if you need a flight to New York and back between the 3rd and the 17th Southwest will not be running that route.   Also, yes it's happened to me as well I notice something missing in the app then check and find it was cancelled with no email, even a week later still no email. ... View more

As far as I know the US Department I’d Transportation has given an order to all Airlines that they must provide refunds for travel cancelled in these months.   Just go online file a DOT complaint I’ve been told it’s a pretty quick process (less than 10 minutes) to file and wait to get a response. ... View more

I disagree -   I reached out to SW via Facebook last week about flight concerns they advised me of how many open seats there were on the flight which was helpful. ... View more

Southwest just added the option to exchange travel funds for points. On top of that all travel funds expiring between March and September now have a 2022 expiration.   I “Luv” Southwest, yes there’s some hiccups here and there but overall they’re great. ... View more

While I agree with you on some points I disagree that Chase should be any factor at all in deciding an extension. The same group essentially made CP for 2019 until 2020 which they were extended until 6/21. So it’d be equally fair to extend those who earned until 12/21 to 6/22. ... View more

I’m in this situation and I won’t be continually re-qualifying so this is crucial for me.   Signed up for the Credit Card in January which earned 100k  Companion Pass Qualifying Points with $25,000 spend which I met.   https://creditcards.chase.com/business-credit-cards/southwest/performance-business   Currently at 178k Companion Pass Qualifying points earned in 2020, not including the 25k they’re “giving” to everyone.   I fly pretty often but I primarily do points bookings rather than revenue flights so they don’t count towards Companion Pass or A-List sadly. Last year I flew probably 50 One Way flights or 25 Roundtrip Flights.   Do you really think people in this situation will have to reach out to Southwest and Southwest won’t be proactive in doing something for those who have a Companion Pass expiring December 2021?     ... View more

If outdoor check in is available at your airport I’d use that and leave a $2 tip. They tend to be more lenient. I had a 52lb bag and was about to repack when they just said, Ah that’s fine don’t worry about it. ... View more

I completely agree. ... View more

So online we have the option to change airports for free no need to reach out.   The issue we have with that is we need to fly in and out of the same airport because dropping a rental car at a different airport is $100-$150 difference as it’s a “one way”. We’ve checked every which way.   Though there are 5 LA area airports only 2 are currently running our route. We’d be willing to switch to San Diego in and out, but apparently that’s not considered the same region so they won’t do it. My wife refuses to fly into LAX just due to international travelers and out of an abundance of precaution. Not to mention the flight our out LAX we would take is 8 hours and we have a toddler with us which wouldn’t go over well. Which leaves us with the other LA area Airport which is causing us to misconnect.   We also have checked the 7 days surrounding and it’s the same flight schedule.  Any later than that wouldn’t work for us unfortunately it’d have to be May.   The mis-connect would happen in Denver I know the people there are pretty hospitable, comparing to workers in Chicago. We had a missed connection due to weather in Chicago and they wouldn’t offer a hotel or even let us get our luggage overnight. We sucked it up because it was due to weather that time. ... View more

Trust me I’ve tried every route possible.   I fly this route pretty often (4x a year) and from Airport 1 to Airport 4 it’s usually only involving 3 airports, but they routed it in a way involving 4.   I’ve gone over this myself and with my wife about 10 times and can’t find a route that would work even through the Multi-City option.   The departing flight leaves from the LA area and has to be routed through either OAK, LAS, DEN, PHX or MDW to get to our destination. It’s being routed through 2 of these instead of 1 causing the delay.   As far as a refund that’s not really an option because we booked at that time when all bookings in March - May were really cheap (I think under $49). And we are flying back home to Airport 4 from Airport 1.   The two other issues are that -   The only available flight is really early and where we are staying is 2 hours away from the airport.   We have to depart from this airport specifically because it’s where we’ll have a rental car from. If not it’s about $150 difference if we have to drop it off at another location.  We don’t mind mis-connecting and being stuck in the middle overnight. Just having to pay for the hotel would be a pain.   As far as them or the system noticing when printing the tickets that’s perfectly fine because I’ve checked every possible route and there’s no other route possible, even a longer own.   I think the two possible outcomes are -   We get stuck in the middle and mis-connect or   The issue is noticed at Airport 1 and they have to rebook us for the next morning.   If the second one happened would they have to “usually” issue a hotel voucher?         ... View more

According to SWA Facebook rep (extension of their Executive Office) some changes like the Travel Fund extension you'll see in the next few days. ... View more

The times may be off a little.   Here’s it exactly -   It’s showing up in the app saying arriving at Airport 3 at 10:35pm.   Then leaving Airport 3 to Airport 4 at 8:35pm arriving at 11:40pm.  This flight is on May 28th I’m guessing by then much more would be open than is currently.   As far as other options there aren’t many for us literally going from Airport 1 to Airport 4 it shows 1 flight which is very early morning and hours away from where we’d be located. So it’d be better to misconnect and be rebooked the next day.   That’s why we’re wondering if SW is then obligated to get us a hotel since they booked it this way. ... View more