Southwest Airlines Community

@jrbesch wrote: Yes, I have had nearly the identical experience.  LUV vouchers expired 1/4/21.  I called on 7/2/21 to have them extended.  No problem, I was told.  A case was ... These were already vouchers that you had from some previous experience, and not travel funds?    I'm only asking as it comes up on this board quite a bit with the terms mixed up.   Same question for @pittjalex  ... View more

@ZevSupport wrote: I find that even if we check in at different times, it always puts the companion one spot behind the primary. Best of luck and safe travels! As long as the companion pass holder checks in first right? Or does the companion checking in make a reverse check-in of the CP Holder?   Obviously a moot point for companion pass holders that are also A-list which would be already assigned at T-36 hours.      ... View more

What is your gateway airport? Some locations are offering rapid PCR tests although it may not be free.    ... View more

@TheMiddleSeat wrote: Asking us to predict the weather more than a week out? Always a tricky thing to do.  Maybe @DancingDavidE can provide some insight on what Chicago is like in the spring.   --TheMiddleSeat Spring is too vague, do you have a month in mind? We get snow issues for sure during the winter which can stretch into the spring.    Extreme pollen knocks me out, but doesn't affect the 737's.    There have been a couple of instances of ice or fog that affected Midway which is a little more sensitive to weather like that due to the runway lengths.    Overall I'm not sure what the OP has in mind...Midway has been a very reliable airport since the dawn of air travel including being the world's busiest airport for a number of years until O'Hare was built in 1955.         ... View more

I think that was applicable during a set time period when canceling a flight during earlier phase of the pandemic got you a year from the date of cancelation even if the booking was from previous travel funds. Does that sound right @bec102896 ?     ... View more

@benmango wrote: Hi there. Typically I have great things to say about Southwest but something that bothered me this past trip was the search/rummaging TSA agents did on my checked bags. I understand that this is part of the process, but to a point. First of all, in the past they would leave a note in the bag saying that it was opened and inspected. No note was seen in my bag. Secondly, there should be a limit as to how much rummaging an agent can do in a checked bag. After all that is my property and I, like many others, are very private. You may ask how I knew my bag was opened and checked. Thats a fair question. The reason is because my laptop bag was closed and my laptop was off when I packed (I make it a point to turn off my electronic devices). When I opened my luggage, my laptop bag was opened and my laptop had been turned on. What purpose did they have in taking my laptop out and turning it on? I may be over-reacting, but I don't see the need to tamper that much into someone else's belongings. Are you checking it often? Make sure it doesn’t have a lithium battery which is not allowed in checked bags.  If it’s valuable at all then I wouldn’t check a laptop, although mishandling is rare it does happen from time to time.    ... View more

@TheMiddleSeat wrote: He was informed he could purchase replacement items and the bag will most likely be delivered as soon as possible.  He should have a claim filed with Southwest and can follow-up using that information.  What else are you looking for? I suspect a lighthearted "airline lost my bag" will be understood by anyone in the meeting.   --TheMiddleSeat Also mention if this is a new activity for him that he'll definitely carry on any same day required business items in the future.      ... View more

How soon do you need to use the funds? As @bec102896 mentioned it may be possible to make a change, this policy had been relaxed a little in recent years compared to the past although it won't look great that you didn't try to correct it when you had the flight originaly, but only now that it is travel funds want to change it.    And as @TheMiddleSeat mentioned it may be possible to fly with the misspelt name anyway. This would mainly have a downside if she has a rapid rewards account and was using this flight to achieve a status under the correct spelling.     ... View more

@dfwskier wrote: Since Southwest requires it's employees to mask up, the answer, by default, is yes. If I am understanding what’s been said the equivalency to an exemption is additional testing, as @dfwskier mentioned everyone will be masked.        ... View more

@FINCH wrote: I'm sitting on 114,000 points and need 125,000 to earn Companion Pass.   What is the fastest way to get those last 11,000 points on my account before I lose it?  HELP PLEASE!  I have 9 days left in the year. To get 11,000 points, quick, I’d look at:   rocketmiles to book a hotel - it will be the premium room but probably can get 10,000 points.  Southwest hotels points run is always the most reliable and you get the points instantly…but at 12x for a business select you’d be looking at about $1,000 in fare. Southwest shopping, great if you can find something you needed anyway Although the price may be higher you can get points that way. I posted an end of year summary on another thread I don’t have the link handy but there are a few other options. Good luck! ... View more

@Librarian wrote: Our closing date is January 4. Am I understanding this correctly--anything we charge starting now will post in 2022? We have to charge $25K ASAP to get Companion & we have some large purchases coming up. (OK DH is anxious to order golf clubs...not sure why when he likely can't use them until his golf trip in late Feb.) I don't want to mess this thing up! I doubt that it’s worth $25k unless you were going to buy the things anyway.   If the CP holder flew 100 times at $200 each on average it’s still only a $20,000 value…? Would the pass be used 100 times?   Anyway, you will need to buy some things direct through Southwest Shopping or Rocketmiles instead of relying solely on credit card spending if you want this to happen before end of year.     ... View more

@dfwskier wrote: Note there are lots of ways to earn points that are current year qualifying even though those ways may not result in points actually being posted to your account until as much as 8 weeks into the new year.   https://community.southwest.com/t5/Knowledge-Base/What-Counts-Toward-Tier-Status/ta-p/83739 Just to clarify - spending may count to 2021 earning towards a 2022 CP, but might be awarded retroactively after 2022 has already started.    So you might not have CP to start the year off but would have it soon if that spending put you over the top.         ... View more

@elijahbrantley wrote: @chgoflyer  (When I was under that requirement for client-paid travel I would upgrade to BS at the airport, paying the difference myself in order to earn more points and board A1-15.)   I like your style!    Have totally done this as well even from a WGA fare if it was getting to the end of the year and I needed to make up some progress on points. Only the upgraded portion of the fee was refundable though in the more recent times, and I believe originally the whole fare would forfeit the refundability as a "change" into the BS fare class but I forget exactly. I know I changed a BS fare once instead of refund and rebook which was a mistake that ended up fine.   Anytime stinks for not much more money you get the 12x instead of 10x, plus the boarding position, plus back in the old days a Turkey and Ginger.    Ironically as a follow up to that other thread though, your companion would get sequential boarding with you as Anytime but not as BS so I guess there is that right now with the new CP rules.       ... View more

@commishg wrote: This situation is proof that no good deed goes unpunished.  A passenger generates additional revenue for Southwest by upgrading to Business Select, but that causes both her daughter and her to be penalized by separating them in the boarding line.  Middle Seat posted a good solution to the problem.  We can only hope that Southwest has the wisdom to adopt it.  I have the same situation coming up later this month, and sadly I fear the same outcome as the lady who posted the original message. If the situation continues - I'd expect if this comes up often you'll be an A-list soon? A-list is really the bread and butter for Southwest more than an occasional upgrade to Business Select, so I think to temper expectations the typical Business Select customer isn't necessarily in the A List or A List Preferred groups and would be "third tier" among the regular customers.   Then as a regular flyer on Southwest you'll get the companion to be adjacent to you as intended by the program.   As you mentioned, there's no real harm especially in the case of your companion being a child. I can see where the logic might be more difficult if they upgraded an adult companion that doesn't end up sitting next to the CP holder.    So my suggestion is next time if this comes up: offer the gate to board at A15 and A15.1 so you aren't squeezing out any of the other BS tickets (if any!) - just keep asking, you'll get some favors although not guaranteed, if not then it will have to be family boarding.    I probably won't write a letter, I don't see it as that big of a hole and I've always been happy with family boarding. If you are making the BS upgrade primarily for points then great, still use family boarding just like you would have before.    Especially once you have A-list you won't want or need BS for boarding position so this seems like a short term issue if you are really flying that often.         ... View more

@lbhendry wrote: Apparently not - but why didn't they just tell her to take it to the gate and check it there? And BTW, this was at a TINY airport!  Also, her flight the night before was cancelled which was why she was on such a tight timeline.  The whole experience was less than desirable. They would have mentioned it if she was checking luggage less than 45 minutes prior to departure, and it is written on the acknowledgements. I have done this before and it often does make it, but it sounds like that didn't work out in this case. If you were coming from a little airport that didn't have a lot of connections to FLL I can see that it might be a day for the next delivery.   If the bag was too big to carry on they wouldn't be encouraging a gate check, if it was carry-on size and/or had anything in it that wouldn't go through TSA then they would have checked it there.       Was      ... View more

If you are close and looking to get 2021 points it is possible to call Chase and get the date changed earlier, you could pick a date with a week or so before the end of the year.    ... View more

@amgibson wrote: Oh, I’ve reached out to southwest and my funds were sent to their bank (Chase) but never received by my bank. This has been ongoing for 3-4 months now. They refuse to help at all. my funds WERE travel funds then they refunded them, after saying they wouldn’t. Plus they didn’t tell me they refunded them so I never knew to look for them for almost a year until I went to use my travel funds and they were gone. The travel funds also don't last forever, there were several extensions that might have applied during the pandemic to make it longer than a year but typically they are to be used within a year of original purchase.   That doesn't sound like the issue here if they said it was refunded, then I would be trying to confirm the routing numbers, etc.     ... View more

@Kindness-Countz wrote: I used my southwest app to make a reservation for four tickets and the total amount has been taken (pending) from my bank account but I did not receive any confirmation of my tickets. I called customer service and they stated that they have been experiencing issues with ApplePay and they do not have any record of my reservation. The fare for the four tickets has since increased (almost doubled) and the representative said they could hold four tickets for me but only at the new rate! Only other option was to email a complaint via the web (which I did) but it could take up to 30days for a response. So I’m out a couple hundred dollars… and now you want to pay EVEN MORE? Oh and my travel is within Seven days 😕 After doing research this appears to be a common issue with South West 🤔 Has anyone experienced the same? Can anyone help please?   Feels a lot like I got scammed. I worked hard to save this money and would appreciate being treated like I matter as a customer. Not “oh yea sometimes our system does that”. ☹️ Save your screenshots and explain that you want to get a LUV voucher towards the difference in the change in fare.    I think we heard about something like this on the message board before, where there was a hiccup and someone had bought the tickets while you were transacting and therefore it didn't actually go through.   But as the others mentioned, if you don't have a confirmation number immediately, you aren't confirmed call right away, rebook, whatever the case may be.     ... View more

@dfwskier wrote: pulling??? Suspicious link...avoid unless more detail is provided. Looks like a spam message.     ... View more

H&D called out specifically in the table as eligible if the purchase completes in 2021, although the processing of that may be 6-8 weeks so you wouldn't necessarily have the CP issued in January if that happens to be when some of your flights are taking place.     ... View more

Back at the computer, here is the table, or set of tables:   https://www.southwest.com/html/rapidrewards/eoy-tier-communication.html     ... View more

Bring a postage paid envelope with you and drop it in the mail on the way to security? ... View more

@Aigustafson wrote: My husband and I were looking forward to taking our kids (5, 4 and 1) to Mexico for Christmas but are going to cancel with current pandemic climate/travel advisories 😞 . Ideally, we’d go at same time next year (we don’t have very flexible schedules). Since we booked this trip VERY early hoping the pandemic would be behind us by now our credits will expire in June. Is there anything we can do to avoid losing all this money $$$.  We were denied the LUV Voucher. Thank you! The unofficial LUV voucher conversion option (for fee) is useful after the travel funds expire, so you may not be eligible for that option yet if you called now.   It is unknown if any additional flexibilities will be coming so you may want to consider if there are any travel options for your family prior to the expiration date which would be the maximum value of your travel funds.   If not, then you have a period I believe 6 months to request the LUV voucher from the expired travel funds, and then six months to use the voucher when you get it - that option in effect would be a conversion fee of $100 per travel fund to re-use it a year later from your original travel as vouchers. Don't call on the first day of expiration to give yourself a little cushion on the voucher's six month expiration.   That's all unpublished, so the terms of the conversion could change or be denied at any time. The best option is to use the travel funds for an alternate trip if any presents itself.     ... View more

Hah! I did get the 21" one I think it was this one, my wife caught a sale. I'd keep an eye on this one for next Friday and Cyber Monday:   https://travelpro.com/collections/carry-on-luggage/products/platinum%C2%AE-elite-21-expandable-carry-on-spinner   I'm sure the 24" fits great in 737-800 and -700's towards the middle but I love this one, even though it's 21" size.     ... View more

Congrats!   And great point - in our heyday I’m sure we got way more than $2k benefit from it.  This year with school starting for dearest daughter the family won’t be coming along on all my trips anymore. We’ll still use it for sure…but maybe ten times instead of 20+ times.     ... View more

Also make sure you do it in time to have your statement closing this year - purchases don’t accrue until the end of the credit card cycle.  I’m flying now and don’t have the link but there is a big table of all qualifying end of year activity. You might look at hotel or car rental bonuses, or something like rocket miles.  Business select flights are also a very reliable method and post instantly. If you have a day to make a points run you can buy a couple of BS fares at 12x + card purchase @ 3x points.    Gift cards are good bough, then you have an asset in your pocket for next year.     ... View more