Southwest Airlines Community

At this point we only know that SW will eventually fly to Honolulu , Kahului , Lihue  and Kona    in Hawaii from  Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose (probably not all 4 mainland cities to all 4 in Hawaii, but time will tell).   SW's  CEO Gary Kelly has said Southwest will start small, with just one route between the West Coast and one destination in Hawaii.    All speculation has been that service would start late 2018 or early 2019.   Put all of that together for you, and you'd have to be lucky to have SW fly to your destination by February, 2019 ... View more

Sorry to hear about your bad experience.   SW likely didn't know about the overcooling issue before departure. Maybe it did. Either way SW likely would have had to make a decision. 1) If the plane had already departed, either return to ONT to fix the problem or divert to another airport to fix the problem. .or. 2) If SW knew of the problem before departure, either delay the departure  to fix the problem or if it could not fix the problem, cancel the flight. Either way, you would have either faced delays or a cancellation.  Would that option felt better to you?   So the decision that SW made was to continue with the flight because there was no safety issue.   I've flown a lot, and have run in to "cold" airplanes on virtually every airline that I've flown: American, Delta, United, Continental, et all. It just happens sometimes. As another person suggested, it  makes sense to carry a long sleeved "something" you can slip on in case you run in to the issue. I Do.   Another suggestion would be to make sure that the air vent above you is in the off position. Since your seat mates were also likely cold, suggesting they close their vents might be appropriate. Also making a suggestion that the flight attendant make a general anouncement to everyone on the plane that it would help the overcolling event if everyone closed their air vents. I have been on flights where that request was made.     As to the "aggressive" gate agent, as another person asked, I'm also interested in what he/she did. Hopefully, you got the agents name. Also, as other have suggested, perhaps a call to customer relations is in order.   Normally, SW employees are far more curteous than employees of other airlines. Maybe your gate agent was having a bad day. In any case, if the agent did something aggressive to you, that is something that should not have happened. ... View more

If you have had continuous problems with hotels, I can understand why you might want to deal directly with hotel websites for your reservations.   As far as cancellations not going thru and rates being switched, hold on to your confirmation e-mails. On hotel stays as you move forward, have your confirmation with you and insist that the hotel agree to charge you what the confirmation says it will charge you. Likewise on cancellations, always refer to the confirmation that you got when you cancelled. Repeated problems of this type SHOULD NOT be happening. Pehaps a talk with SW customer relations would be in order, and being able to talk about specific situations would be heplful. ... View more

Wow, that is a tough one.. I fly a lot , maybe 2 million miles in my life, and never had anything like this happen.   Presumably  boarding was still going on,  so I guess what I would have done, is put something in my seat (like a bag so someone would not take my seat),  and go to the front of the plane to talk with a flight attendant in private. Maybe th FA could have found you another seat. Perhaps he FA could have talked to the other person in your absence and asked him to lower the arm rest. Perhaps the FA could have done a quick survey of the aircraft and found two continuous seats somewhere and asked the person to move - telliing him he might be more comfortable there (not likely in these days and tmes). Perhaps nothing could have been done.   I'm sure that you did not have a good time. I know that I would not have..   In the future perhaps, you could make sure the arm rest is down as soon as you sit down, and tell anyone sitting next to you that you REALLY prefer to have the arm rest down. Use an excuse if need be: "I get claustrophobic if I feel wedged in."   At this point, the other suggestion that you contact customer relations , is about the best you can do. I'm not sure what they can do, after the fact, to make you feel better.  ... View more

 I agree with elijah.   Something flaky is going on. If SW had simply cancelled your flights, SW would have tried to put you on different flights. It would not have put your funds in your tavel funds account.   It sounds like something happened to your specific reservations.   Please do reach out to SW's twitter team for an appropriate resolution.   Good luck. ... View more

@Rocher45 wrote: I wanted to use my travel funds and expected to see them when I went to pay for my flight,  but they were no where to be found. Not in a drop down option in the pat window and no where in "my account". I checked!  I found the information 3 days later. I was on hold with Custer service for half an hour only to be told they could not help me. They said I can cancel the flight I booked and then repurchase using the travel funds and i would get more travel funds . So essentially extend the travel funds expiration date, but I do not have anymore trips planned. I would like Southwest to show good customer service by allowing me to apply my travel fund or refund me for the amount of the travel fund because I did try to apply it at time of purchase, I just didnt know where to find it. It is not fair Southwest does not have the travel funds in "my account" nor are instructions provided on how to apply the travel funds. It is nice that Southwest allows free changes to be made to flights and issues travel funds, but by not making it user friendly in applying the travel funds, I feel many are often cheated out the the opportunity to apply them. Please make this right Southwest @LindseyD Sorry to hear that you are having difficulty.   First of all, this forum is a customer to customer contact area.If you wold like to discuss the issue with someone from, you will want to contact SW customer service. That will not happen here.   SW sends everyone that cancels a flight an e-mail that contains the amount of travel funds available for use, the confirmation number, and the expiration date of the funds. You can search you e-mail  system for e-mails that start with "Cancelled flight reservation" You can also have travel funds available when you change flights and end up with a new flight that costs less than your original flight. SW also sends to an e-mail when you change flights. As above you can search your e-mail system for an e-mail that starts with "Updated flight reservation."     You need to keep those e-mails so you can access your travel funds I have a seperate e-mail folder that I keep them in called "Travel funds available."   People that travel a lot know this. People that travel less frequently might not.   Perhaps SW could put this line at the top of these e-mail "Keep this e-mail for future use." ... View more

@SWAwillTravel wrote: I agree, the method to determine if you have any unused SWA miles is terrible.  I can see an accountant in a SWA back office, clapping his or her hands every time a customer's miles get errassed because a customer did not know how to access unsued miles.  This seems intentional.    Other airlines know how to track unused miles, SWA could easily do so aswell.   The is a perfect example of the tricks that airlines pull to make it more diffecult for customers to get the full benefit of what they paid for the tickets.    SWA, you can do better.    If you are not talking about miles, but instead mean rapid reward points, it couldn't be easier to determine how many points you have.   1 Log in to the Southwest website 2) The following page (Very top line right of center) shows you name and the number of points in your account   EVERY TIME you log on to the SW website, your first page shows how many points you have.   If you want to check how many points you've recently earned/used, click on recent activity (left side of page in light blue shading) and you'll have access to every activity that earned or used mies -- this year or last year)   It's very transparent. All you have to do is look. ... View more

Good morning.   This forum is not run by SW employees. If you'd like to have someone at SW contact you to resolve your issue(s), you'll need to call the airline.   To use travel funds from your cancelled flight you will need to know your confirmation number, AND travel within one year of the date you bought the original ticket, AN D book the flight with the same name as was on the original ticket. That's all there is to it.   To do so online, just select your flight, and when you get to the payment method, select travel funds, and input your confirmation number and the name of the person on the original ticket.   Note travel funds are only useable by the person whose name was on  the original ticket. ... View more

  Sorry to hear about your bad experience. I've rented from Payless multiple times and not experienced any problems. Every rent car firm will try to upsell you and/or try to get you to buy extended coverage. They all do, not just Payless..   That being said, Southwest does not endorse any rent car firm. You can rent from 12 different companies on the Southwest website, I think that's about every major rent car firm in America. Southwest does not endorse any of them. Southwest lists all 12 firms and hotel options, too, so that travellers can do one stop price comparisons and shopping, as opposed to going to multiple websites. It's a customer convenience.   Firms like Payless buy Rapid Rewards points from Southwest. They offer points to customers in the hope that customers will choose them , as opposed to a firm that does not award points,  when renting cars. That isn't an endorsement.   I'd recommend two things:   1) Send Payless a complaint    2) Review Payless on Yelp and other ratingplatforms so others cn read about your bad experience,  and maybe use your feedback in deciding who they should rent their cars from. ... View more

Southwest is a VERY ethical airline that does try to do the right thing for it's passengers.   You are just the most recent example.   Glad it worked out for you, and thanks for sharing your experience.         ... View more

Saving seats does not have to lead to confrontation.   Throw your bag or jacket on the seat you want to save. If someone asks if the seats are taken, you can say yes. If pressed further, you can say the person using the seat is somewhere up front - which would be true.   I left my own computer and headphones on my aisle seat w hen I left the seat to  visit the restroom last week when boarding for my full flight was stil going on. People got the messge that the seat was taken. ... View more

Your card earns   2 points per $1 spent on Southwest purchases and Rapid Rewards® Hotel and Car Rental Partner purchases. 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.   The only way to verify that you are getting the right number of points is to determine how many purchases go into those wo cateories, then based on that determine how many points you should earn, and compare  with how many you acutally earn ... View more

I've been receiving drink coupons for a very, very long time and never had anything like this happen.   I suspect that it is a simple screw up   I'd suggest that you call cutome service to get the situation resolved. ... View more

I'll propose a solution that I'm sure will be contoversial: Save the seats.   Take an aisle seat and throw your briefcase in the window seat (or middle seat). when people ask, you can tell them the seat is taken.   If you need to, have the person you board with sit in the aisle seat across from you and have that person do the same thing with a bag.   Southwest policy does not prohibit saving seats, but a lot of people don't like it when people do it. You'll find discusion on the topic on this site.   In the interest of full disclosure: I do save seats - normally one and never more than two.. ... View more

There is a potential solution.    Do a print screen just after completing a booking. SW's confirmation will be on your screen and it contains everything you need.     ... View more

As I said earlier, I'd advise that you contact customer relations.   If they are no help, I'd advise writing to Gary Kelley. He probably won't see your letter, but his administrative assistant will, and that person will refer the inquiry to someone higher up in the company than customer service. At the very least, your inquiry will receive a meaningful reply instead of the standard rote reply.   I've done this several times with other companies, and have always been satisfied with the result.   If you don't ask, you don't get. ... View more

I have the most current version of Southwest's app on my phone and I can save the pass to my photo album by hitting the "camera icon" which is just above and to the right of the google pay icon ... View more

Southwest normally opens it's schedule about 7 months ahead of time. So June likey will open in November   As a point of reference SW's May (31 I think) update opened up the last three weeks  of December thru January 6 ... View more

Sorry to hear about your experience.   Here's what I'd do:   1) Write (call?) Southwest and firmly remind the company that you are the vicitim of theft.   2) Demand that Southwest refund the miles to your account (if the thief hasn't yet travelled, SW cn cancel the ticket)   3) Demand that Southwest reveal the identity of the thief. Tell them you plan to file a olice report.   4) File a police report and have the police go after hm/her.   You said he needed your credit card number and your RR number plus a few other things to get into your account. Did he charge the TS A fee to your credit card. If so protest the erroreous charge, and have your bank cancel the old card. Doing that atleast insures that the thief won't be able to do it again.   As a point of reference, someone withdrew several hundred dollars in Discover Card rewards from my card 7-8 years ago. When I noticed it, I called Discover, and the company reinstated the funds. ... View more

Prices on Wanna Get Away seats go up and down all the time, and I have seen those fares show up for dates/flights where they were not in the past - if for no other reason than people canceling flights. ... View more

You might want to try to get your  username/ account number from this southwest page   https://www.southwest.com/account/recovery#needUsername   Edit add: note that if you use the function that every word needs to EXACTLY match what is currently in the system. So if you set upthe account as belonging to Robert A. Smith, then that's what you'll need to type in. If you type in Robert or Bob, the system will say that it can't find you. ... View more

@timdik wrote: They will not solve it because they don't want international people to book SW flights. I have this problem year after year. They always say they have informed the relevant department, but I tell you that it's a policy to keep it this way. Very bad, bad service.  Sorry that you are having poblems, but why would Southwest not want interntional travelers to book SW flights? Pounds and euros and crowns  and peros are real money, and add to Southwest's revenues jsut like dollars do. ... View more

earlier in the thread chgoflyer had this suggestion:   " -- Access the website using a proxy server. There are many free ones available online. -- Try using the Southwest app on your cell carrier's network (not your internet provider)."   Another person suggested using your phone as a hotspot and then acessing the hotspot with your tablet/notebook.   If you have web based phone service (ie no charge to place calls), another suggestion would be to call the airline. ... View more

To cancel part of your itinerary you have to  call the airline. The travel cedit will be saved to the confrmation number on record. ... View more

Well, your post does not provide enough detail to do any detailed speculating, but I can portray a scenario that fits what you said.   1) the flight to Chicago was already late due to a maintenance problem that was being worked on when your flight arrived 2) the airline decided to let the Chicago fight have your plane so that it could get on it's way and not be delayed further. At that point you were not late. 3) the airline thought it could get the "broken" plane fixed fast enough that you wouldn;t be delayed for long 4) The airline hoped for a solution that involved two flights with relatively short delays instead of one on time flight and one delayed for a longer period that would make connecting passengers miss their flights. The hope being that connecting passengers on both flights would have a chance to make their connections 5) Maybe the original Chicago plane took longer to fix than they thought it would. ... View more

As I said earlier in this thread do a two on one printing of the SW e-mail confirmation you get when you book a flight, and everything will be on one printed page.   The left side will be the first SW page which includes your name, date of travel, and city pairs (better known as itinerary). The right side will the the second SW page which includes the price of the ticket. You don't need the final SW page to get what you say you need.    Edit add: another option would be to print at 50% and print the first two pages of the SW e-mail. Everything mentioned above will print top to bottom on one piece of paper. ... View more

The e-mail confimration you receive as soon as you book a flight is your receipt. It is sent to you seconds after you have completed the booking process.   It contains your name, dates of travel, city pairs with flight numbers, and the cost.   Just print it and use it. ... View more

Not sure what that comment has to do about getting an A boarding position.   But to your point, I suspect you are talking about Wanna Get Away travel that was cancelled and travel funds in your grandchildren's names.   Southwest is completely transparent about travel funds. They must be used within a year of original purchase and be used by the person whose name was on the original ticket. YOU agreed to those rules when you bought the tickets.   If you didn't want to agree with those rules, then you should not have bought the tickets.     ... View more