I totally agree--Southwest's claims in its advertising of providing excellent service to its customers and helping the customers avoid fees is downright FALSE.
About three months ago my mother and father booked a flight from Omaha Nebraska to Charleston South Carolina to go to a family wedding. Mom and Dad were traveling with my uncle who has Ataxia, a neurological disorder, and cannot walk without a walker and has to live in a nursing home. About a week ago an emergency arose with my dad's work and he could not go, which was an issue because my mom is 61 and it would be very hard for her to assist my uncle alone. I was able to cancel my plans and get free from work to travel with my mom to help her with my uncle.
We called Southwest and explained to them this situation and asked to get the ticket changed from my father's name to my name so I could travel with my mom and uncle. I did not think that this would be an issue, especially since Southwest is the airline that runs commercials showing customers taking airline executives to "court" for charging them hundreds of dollars for changing flights, and even scolds the execs for lining their pockets by gouging their customers with unnecessary fees.
Keep in mind, my mom, wasn't even trying to change flights, she just wanted to change the name on the ticket she bought from "James T" to "William T". After two calls waiting on hold for up to an hour, she was informed that Southwest would charge us $200 just to change the name on the ticket over a month in advance of our flight. She even explained the situation of my father's emergency and having to have at least one other person along to help with my uncle. After getting the run around and being told that changing a name on a flight would pose security concerns and all kinds of other excuses, she was finally able to get the fee reduced to $144.
However, this is exactly the type of junk that Southwest says it doesn't do--this is the airline that says "no red tape" and "we don't charge our customers hundreds of dollars for changing flights"--but this is exactly what we experienced with Southwest.
Keep in mind we CHOSE Southwest based upon the representations made in these commercials, and begrudgingly knocking $56 off of a $200 fee just to change the name on a ticket after repeatedly trying to get ahold of someone to speak to is hardly a concession, let alone representative of a company who provides superior customer service concerned about helping a disabled customer get to a family wedding.
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