@TheMiddleSeat wrote: And to clarify refundability in this case, if the original purchase was WGA then it's non refundable to begin with. If Anytime was purchased, it's refundable, but when "upgrading" you're better off not refunding and having funds held as travel funds so they can be used immediately towards the purchase of the BS fare. If there's an actual refund they would go back to the travel system and the flyer would be back at step one. Mixing non refundable and refundable money makes all the money non refundable so if the original purchase was WGA, the new BS ticket would be non refundable. This isn't completely correct. This situation is complicated by Southwest's recent policy change regarding "refundable" fares, combined with the passenger and purchaser being two separate entities. Anytime fare: If the original fare was Anytime, and you change the flight to Business Select, you will lose the ability to get a refund at any future date. An employer would likely be upset to learn that they can't get their funds back if necessary, when they had purchased a refundable fare in the first place for exactly that reason. The funds would now be locked into the name of the passenger. If you cancel the Anytime fare, hoping to upgrade to BS, the refund would be sent to the purchaser. Meaning that this avenue of upgrade isn't possible in this scenario. Wanna Get Away fare: If the original fare was WGA, and you change the flight to Business Select, the original portion of the fare will remain non-refundable (locked in the name of the passenger), but the new funds added to purchase Business Select will be refundable (assuming no further changes are made to the itinerary), back to the form of purchase used for the "upgrade." If you cancel the WGA fare, hoping to upgrade to BS, you can use the funds from the original booking towards the BS one, and everything essentially works the same as above. NOTE: If you upgrade to a Business Select ticket from a Wanna Get Away fare that you currently have, the original Wanna Get Away portion of the ticket will remain nonrefundable. Any new funds that you apply to make up the difference will be refundable, as long as you make no further changes to the itinerary. The absurd "refundable" policy change has unnecessarily complicated things. One hopes Southwest follows through on their promise to address the system limitation that allegedly caused this strange policy change to be put in place. And soon.
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