Southwest Airlines Community

Tom, I'm saying that the award reservations are never available at times that I need them. It seems that I have a better chance getting one of the "Internet One-way" flights than getting to book a flight with my "award". I might not be super flexible with my travel dates, but I'm definitely not limited to specific times either. I just think that an award is not very rewarding at all if I can't use it on a friday (any time) and only at pre-7am on a sunday, especially when I'm booking my flight 3 months in advance. It seems to me that there aren't even award reservations allocated to flights that are at popular times. And it seems silly to me to generate award reservation availability based on demand. I usd to think these things were as good as a free flight. When I read "Fly just 8 roundtrips or receive 16 credits in 24 months and weà ... View more

Well that's great that SW is listening to what some customers want. I'm a SW customer, and what I want, are rewards that I can use. Why have separate reservations available (or unavailable, as seems to be the case with any semi-popular flight) for use with the not-so-rapid-anymore rewards awards? Why not just make any flight you can book, payable with cash, credit, or award?? Maybe that would make too much sense and make the rewards worth too much. I guess the point of the SW's version of a frequent flyer program is to fill up flights in the middle of the week. Let's see if this flame produces a change. I won't hold my breath. ... View more

As long as none of the airlines offer competive prices, decent customer service, or useful incentives to fly often, I'm sure the current set of lackluster companies will continue to rape their customers with their no-refund-when-they-can't-provide-the-service-they-sold policies, referring to the constant delayed (if I wanted to get there at 11pm I would have gone on a later, and cheaper, flight) and oversold flights (apparently its legal to sell seats you don't have). And I'm sure they'll continue to advertise their fly-for-free-when-no-one-wants-to-because-the-plane-was-going-to-be-half-empty-anyways "rewards" like being a frequent flyer is actually beneficial (last time I checked, sitting in airports for hours and dealing with incompetent workers performing their duties at a sloth-like pace doesn't benefit me very much). ... View more

Customer service champs? You can be friendly and helpful all you want (though I know that's not the norm), but if I have to wait more than an hour on a runway, I want my money back, not some unuseable "awards". If I went to a restaurant, pre-paid for an overpriced meal, and then didn't get to eat until 2 hours after my reservation, don't think I'd be satisfied with a voucher for a Tuesday afternoon lunch. Airlines are such a joke, and SW is no different. Probably not much worse, but definitely not any better. They might have been better a few years ago, but those days are over. AA prices have been consistently lower for the last 3 or 4 months on the regular weekly flight I make, and before that it was luck of the draw who would be the cheaper of the two. In any other industry, companies with such ridiculous prices and service would be put the right out of business. But since there seems to be no sense of competition, they seem to do absolutely nothing to provide anything that could pass for decent customer service. Okay, maybe not ANY other industry... gas station behavior seems to be consistent with that of the airlines. ... View more

How about making award reservations actually useful? Why have separate reservations set aside (or not set aside, as seems to be the case with flights at popular times) for use with awards? Why not just make any flight you can book, payable with cash, credit, or award?? Oh yeah, because that would make sense, make the award be what it appears to be when advertised, and be a form of decent treatment of the customer. They should call them Worthless Rewards. I've earned 3 "award" round trips so far, and I was forced to use the first two on flights at times and on days when I would never choose to travel. I just tried to make use of my 3rd award reservation (for about the 4th time), and it looks like I'll be holding onto that award in hope of having a surprise inclination to fly to LA on a Tuesday night and return Saturday afternoon. I wanted to book a flight to Vegas 3 months in advance. Apparently 3 months isn't enough, because, as with every award reservation attempt I've made, there are no decent award flights available. None on Friday, and only a 6:10am flight on Sunday. Sweet. NOT. They don't even offer award flights from San Jose to New York, which was another destination I'd like to use my award to get to. So how about wasting the award on a (relatively) cheap flight to San Diego? Only if I want to leave at 9pm Friday and return at 6:40am Sunday. Even Monday morning would work for me, but all that's offered is Monday night. No thanks. ... View more