E3only

Hello,

Anyone fly with Southwest? I have a quick question. I have a booking for Las Vegas to Austin, TX. I paid $169 for it. Now, I notice that there same leg same date is available for $124.

Here is the issue - when I log into my southwest account and try change my flight, it does not give me the $124 option!! it only shows me $169. However, if I just check the website without logging in I do see the $124 flight!

Does southwest offer cancellation without fees? I was wondering if I can just cancel the flight and book it at $124 5 mins after.

Thanks.

Noorah101

My hubby and I fly SW all the time. SW does not have cancellation fees, no...but sometimes a fare can't be refunded either. It depends what type of fare you bought in the first place.

You can cancel the $169 fare and if it's a refundable fare, they'll refund it. If not, it will be saved in an account for 1 year for you to reuse (the funds can be applied to any other flights, for any amount). If the $124 flight is still available, you can go ahead and purchase that one instead. You'll either end up with a refund of your $169, or a $169 credit on SW good for 1 year.

There are no fees involved with any of the above.

Rene

E3only

Thanks Rene,

The new fares are for this weekend. I plan to call them and tell them I need to cancel and re-book. Ideally, I want to use the cancellation funds immediately to re-book. See how that goes.

I am not doing anything here that will get them to red flag my account right? I don't want to call them and then all of a sudden they say I can not do what I want to do....

It's clear to me. I want to cancel and re-book lower fare that's all it is. I don't mind having the credit but I booked for 6 of us so it will be close to $2k in the credit and there is no way we will use that in 12 months (we did lots of our vacation travel already)....and the 2K is for LAS to Austin, Austin to SFO in case you were wondering!

Noorah101

No, there's no red flags in what you want to do, and SW won't charge you any fees for making the change.

The only thing I can see, as I've said, is that if you bought a non-refundable type of ticket in the first place, they won't be able to refund the money so you can use it right away on the immediate re-purchase of the lower fare...they will hold it in the SW account for 1 year. If you bought a refundable fare, then yes, they can probably do what you want.

I've found SW to be very straightforward yet friendly on the phone, you can probably just give them your confirmation number and tell them what you want to do...they'll let you know if it's possible or not. My sister and I once wanted to come back home from vacation on a later flight, so I called SW to change our ticket. The nice lady on the phone at SW said if we change our ticket, we have to pay the difference in fare price, which was a bit high....but she reminded us that if we MISS our flight, we can always try to get on a later flight at no charge...and since there was a flight leaving almost every hour that day, we had a good chance of making a later flight at no extra charge. I thought that was really nice of her! We took her advice and enjoyed extra hours at the beach in LA, got on a later flight, and paid nothing extra.

Please let us know how it goes...since I use SW so often, I'm curious. I hope you do get the deal you want!

Rene

Poppy girl

I flew them last week, if you are unable to change the ticket thats to bad, but at least its a short flight and remember that you do not get a seat assignment, you will grouped into A, B,C, and its up to you to find a decent seat as and when they call you.

E3only

Thanks guys.

I called and confirmed if I could do what I wanted. Very helpful staff. Both the original fare and the new one are web only so the rep just guided ms through and I changed the flight. That's that. I could only change one of the two flights because I have 6 passengers and one of the flights does not have 6 tickets for that leg

Point to note tho is I can use the credit in the same passengers name. So re fact that I use my credit card for all of them does not matter.

That's the update. I am going to keep checking if they release 6 tickets at lower price for the other flight !!

Cheers

Steerpike

Sounds impressive! I chose to adopt US Airways as my regular vehicle for getting between CA and AZ, but this makes me think I should have chosen SouthWest. US Airways are highly competitive with SW on price, but - if you need to change, you are screwed.

Too late for me to change now, I'm totally embedded in their frequent flyer game with 100,000 + 'miles' (half of that is credit card usage), etc. I do get some first class upgrades, and always get to sit in rows 5 or 6 with an aisle seat, early boarding, fast track through security, etc ...

Noorah101

Sorry, I didn't quite get it. Did they let you have the fare at the lower price and then refund the remaining? Or you have a credit with SW now for the remaining?

Glad it worked out to your advantage either way!

Rene

The Grey Area

Two words for Southwest Airlines: Cattle Car

Noorah101

LOL, I agree...but tolerable for short trips.

Rene

scrubbedexpat097

Maybe but when you can cut the price in half compared to other airlines on the same route then who cares....it's what is at the other end of the trip that is important to us

The Grey Area

It's the Walmart of Airlines

AdobePinon

I always fly Southwest when I have a choice. They're usually on time or even early. If there is a problem, they'll go out of their way to make sure you get to your destination.

The Grey Area

And there's always a problem isn't there? I like to show up 20 minutes before departure and just walk on the plane so I have a big problem with over booking, and Southwest seems to really over book their flights.

AdobePinon

No, there's hardly ever a problem, at least for me.

If you show up 20 minutes before departure, you can expect to be hosed by pretty much any airline.