That link got me $25 of my $50 early bird fees refunded. And I definitely know what I’m doing. My ex husband is a SWA pilot and I spent 12 years as part of the SWA family. He’s currently stranded just like so many unfortunate passengers. I paid (not flying non-rev or using a Buddy pass) for myself and our kids to visit the grandparents in DC, scheduled to have departed 12/26 but after 4 cancellations I had to buy tickets on AA to leave Fri, at an additional cost of $887 for the 3 of us. While SWA is allowing disrupted and stranded passengers to request reimbursement for “reasonable” travel disruption expenses, it’s simply that, a request. For straight method of payment refunds for cancelled flights, they’re still applying ticket fare rules, meaning the vast majority of travelers are stuck receiving only travel funds since they booked Wanna Get Away fares deemed non refundable apparently even in this circumstance. I submitted both a cancellation refund request and a expense increase reimbursement request. The response to my refund request was “here’s half of your early bird fee.” They withheld the second half under the rationale I might use my return ticket, despite being unable to depart on SWA until after the scheduled return date. The words hot mess don’t begin to adequately describe this debacle. I have the utmost patience and compassion for SWA employees both now and leading up to this (it was a long time coming); what I don’t have is unlimited funds to waste and endless patience for corporate greed, malfeasance and general incompetence that has no end in sight.
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