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Death - travel funds, ticket and points

smdawheel3663
Explorer C

Hi my Brother-in-law just passed away inexpertly.  I am trying to help my sister with some of the items related to southwest.  

 

He had current ticket for February.   I believe she can get this cancelled with a refund.  

He had travel funds.  Can she get these refunded or transferred to her?

He had about 20k points in his account.  If she calls to get refund and deal with the travel funds will his account be closed?  She has access to his account. 

 

Thanks in advance for your help. 

2 REPLIES 2

Re: Death - travel funds, ticket and points

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

Regarding the refund, see this thread:

https://community.southwest.com/t5/Travel-Policies/Refund-due-to-death/m-p/87017/highlight/true#M659...

 

You can cancel the booked flight now via his account online and that will generate another travel fund.  It seems that you should have up until the earliest expiration date of the travel funds to call about a refund, I don't believe there's a need to call asap.  As you noted, informing Southwest of the death may trigger closure of the RR account.  That's an interesting question and not one I recall seeing an answer to previously.

Since transferring points is expensive my suggestion would be to log into the account and purchase flights for other people using the points before calling about the refund.  You could even book flights way off in the future that you do not intend to take, just so the points are not sitting in the account.  Once you actually know what flight you want to use the points on you can change the flights as needed.  Once the points are spent go ahead and call about the refund.  Just don't cancel the points bookings if the account gets closed since it wouldn't be clear where the refunded points would go to if the account is closed.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Death - travel funds, ticket and points

dfwskier
Aviator A
Solution

Sorry to hear about the passing of your brother in law.

 

I went thru this with a close friend 4 years ago.

 

Upon notification, SW refunded the ticket that was still in effect. I memory serves, it did the same with travel funds -- to the original form of payment. SW did not ask to see a death certificate.

 

'It did not close the RR  account, allowing an authorized user to use his RR account/points for tickets. 4 years later the account is still open and points are still being used.

 

As mentioned above, that is the best way of using the points.