04-15-2020
11:27 AM
Tried to cancel flight 10 days ago. EarlyBird fees were no included in the travel credit, so I did not execute. Read all the community forum post over the last hour, including the reference to the USA Today 4/2/2020 article about Southwest changing its policy. Tried just now to cancel again for a future travel credit, and it still excludes the EarlyBird fees. Here's my post on the whole issue: My spouse and I (both Rapid Rewards members) have the referenced itinerary. I attempted to take advantage of the amended cancellation/refund/travel credit options because of the pandemic affecting all methods of travel. Before I clicked on getting the $254.00 credited for future travel, I noticed that the $40.00 EarlyBird fee was not to be part of the credit. Going back to the rules, I noticed that one has to drill down in the original purchase pages to find this out - why would I need to check this at all? Let me mention how other businesses have handled the vacation we had planned: 1) Marriott refunded the entire cost we had paid for in advance for a 3-night stay in NYC; 2) Broadway.com refunded the entire cost of our theater tickets for two performances; 3) Amtrak provided travel credit for the entire cost of 2 itineraries; and 4) Delta Airlines provided travel credit for the entire cost of our itinerary from RSW to LGA. Given the unprecedented nature of the pandemic on all walks of life, why would Southwest Airlines (WN) insist on keeping EarlyBird fees when, in fact, if a traveler has to cancel an itinerary due to it, WN would not be providing early check-in for that itinerary! I would suggest that WN temporarily amended its EarlyBird policy and provided travel credit to those itineraries for which it is providing exceptions. Why in the world, with the 1,000s of people jamming the phone lines (I'm on a 45-minute call-back hold from 855-234-4654), doesn't Southwest just amend the software to reflect their policy change? The policy change has been in place since the first week of April....
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