Southwest Airlines Flight Change Policy? (1 Viewer)

[GroveDiesel]

Anyone have familiarity with changing your flight after Southwest changes your flight?

I have a flight booked to Vegas in June and I recently got a notice that my flights were changed which put me in Vegas about an hour later than originally scheduled and added 2.5 hours of travel time. 

I was under the impression that Southwest would allow you to change your flights for free if your new flights didn’t work for you and there were open seats on another flight. But when I go into try to change it, there are zero seats available on that date at the Wanna Get Away fare class for the entire day. But of course most of the flights show availability for higher fare classes but they then want to charge me an extra $650 for the fare class difference it appears. Is that correct?

All in all it’s not a horrible situation, but moving the flight back and adding a stop makes me more nervous that it could get cancelled totally or travel issues could crop up. I’d much rather be able to move my flight up a couple of hours if possible.

 

[Cjw_55106]

No experience with this, but I assume there is a number you can call?

 

[Zegras11]

It's been pay the difference for quite some time.  I fly them a lot.  Sometimes the new flight is less and I get a credit.

 

[gianmarco]

I would call them. Had a similar thing happen and they rebooked on the different, preferred flight at no charge. I don't think they have to but I have found SWA customer service to be pretty solid. 

 

[parasaurolophus]

I would call them. Had a similar thing happen and they rebooked on the different, preferred flight at no charge. I don't think they have to but I have found SWA customer service to be pretty solid. 

Yep. Same experience. 

 

[Stinkin Ref]

we pretty exclusively us SW....but I will say it seems like almost every one of our last 5 trips or so have seen the "flights get changed" in one way or another from our initial purchase.....it is pretty frustrating because we put a ton of time and thought into our initial planning/purchase and there is a reason we chose the flights that we did months in advance....having to then "settle" for whatever changes they make whether the cost is the same or not is not really the issue....for instance if I am going to a beach resort in Mexico....the difference between arriving at the resort by 11:00 or so in the morning or 6:00 at night....is a big difference to us....basically that entire first day of fun in the sun is now wasted on travel....for a get off my lawn attitude I can honestly say I don't ever remember flights being so easily changed or cancelled or whatever "back in the day"....and we just having to accept it so to speak....

 

[humpback]

Anyone have familiarity with changing your flight after Southwest changes your flight?

I have a flight booked to Vegas in June and I recently got a notice that my flights were changed which put me in Vegas about an hour later than originally scheduled and added 2.5 hours of travel time. 

I was under the impression that Southwest would allow you to change your flights for free if your new flights didn’t work for you and there were open seats on another flight. But when I go into try to change it, there are zero seats available on that date at the Wanna Get Away fare class for the entire day. But of course most of the flights show availability for higher fare classes but they then want to charge me an extra $650 for the fare class difference it appears. Is that correct?

All in all it’s not a horrible situation, but moving the flight back and adding a stop makes me more nervous that it could get cancelled totally or travel issues could crop up. I’d much rather be able to move my flight up a couple of hours if possible.

Yes, it's been happening a lot unfortunately, but each time (so far) they've given us the choice to make 1 change to any other flight within 2 weeks for free. Here's the message in the email: 

Hello xyz,

We recently made a change to your upcoming trip due to shifts in our flight schedule. You can see your new itinerary above. If this change works for you, you don't need to do anything—your reservation is already confirmed.

If your new itinerary won't work, you can change your flight date and/or time by up to 14 days from your original travel date at no additional cost. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to visit Southwest.com/rebook and enter your name and confirmation number. If you still need help or have questions after going online, you can call us at 1-800-IFLY-SWA (1-800-435-9792). Wait times to speak with someone may be high.

We're looking forward to welcoming you onboard,

Your friends at Southwest

 

[Gally]

We were scheduled to fly out to Minnesota for a Vikings game in January.  The night before (10pm) we were scheduled to leave (8am) we got an email saying our flight was cancelled (only one leg of the trip).  Since it was so late and we had others plans that we didn't want to miss we immediately started hunting down other flights on our own because we weren't sure what was going to happen (the email didn't say they would rebook other flights etc).  We found flights out of a different airport at 6am which meant we had to leave right then to get there for the flight.  We show up and SW cancelled the flights we just booked (without telling us or contacting us).  We only found out when we got to the kiosk and the rep couldn't find us on the flight.  It turns out that since only one of the legs of our original trip was cancelled it still had us booked on the 2nd leg.  The way their system works is if it notices you have multiple flight booked to the same destination it cancels them automatically so you can't hog flight spots.  

So now we are at the airport with no spots on the flight (we had three passengers and there were only two spots left on the flight we booked the night before).  The rep worked hard and found us flights from a different airport (about a 45 minute drive away).  They then gave us $200 vouchers each for the issues.  Now we hustle to the next airport and show up to check in.  We check the board and there is no flight leaving there to our destination so we are really confused.  We go to the check in counter and the rep confirms we are good to go and checks us in.  There is a manager there and while we are waiting we start talking about our day and how "fun" it has been so far due to all this changing on us.  The manager then offers up another $150 in vouchers to each of us.  Now up to $350 each.   

We proceed to the gate.  When we get there it has a different destination but same departure time.  We go to the counter and ask about it.  They say we are in the right place but we are a bit confused because the destination is off.  They say don't worry about it and se sit down.  I ask one of the other travelers where they are going and they say what's on the board (Austin, TX) and not where we are supposed to be going (Minneapolis/St Paul).  Now we are really confused......right then our names get called up to the gate.  We are now really wondering what is going on.  We get up there and they inform us we are going to Austin but will stay on the plane and it will continue to Minneapolis.  Then they churn out another $75 in vouchers for us.  

Bottom line it was a hell of a day (basically on the road for 24hrs) with three different Los Angeles area airports, Austin, and Minneapolis with only one airplane involved.  But they were nice and helped us all while giving us $450 in free vouchers for our troubles.  Game was great.....Vikes beat the Bears but to cap it all off we ended up with Covid from the trip.  Ain't travel great!

ETA:  I almost forgot.  For the trip back home we got the same email cancelling our Monday flights (but this was on Saturday morning).  We decided to not worry about it and about an hour later we got another notice saying they booked us on different flights (only slightly changed the time) and we were good to go.  We didn't have any real issues on the return so the moral of the story is don't be too proactive in re-booking as that can cause a lot more confusion than just letting them do it (if you have time to let them).  

 

[GroveDiesel]

We were scheduled to fly out to Minnesota for a Vikings game in January.  The night before (10pm) we were scheduled to leave (8am) we got an email saying our flight was cancelled (only one leg of the trip).  Since it was so late and we had others plans that we didn't want to miss we immediately started hunting down other flights on our own because we weren't sure what was going to happen (the email didn't say they would rebook other flights etc).  We found flights out of a different airport at 6am which meant we had to leave right then to get there for the flight.  We show up and SW cancelled the flights we just booked (without telling us or contacting us).  We only found out when we got to the kiosk and the rep couldn't find us on the flight.  It turns out that since only one of the legs of our original trip was cancelled it still had us booked on the 2nd leg.  The way their system works is if it notices you have multiple flight booked to the same destination it cancels them automatically so you can't hog flight spots.  

So now we are at the airport with no spots on the flight (we had three passengers and there were only two spots left on the flight we booked the night before).  The rep worked hard and found us flights from a different airport (about a 45 minute drive away).  They then gave us $200 vouchers each for the issues.  Now we hustle to the next airport and show up to check in.  We check the board and there is no flight leaving there to our destination so we are really confused.  We go to the check in counter and the rep confirms we are good to go and checks us in.  There is a manager there and while we are waiting we start talking about our day and how "fun" it has been so far due to all this changing on us.  The manager then offers up another $150 in vouchers to each of us.  Now up to $350 each.   

We proceed to the gate.  When we get there it has a different destination but same departure time.  We go to the counter and ask about it.  They say we are in the right place but we are a bit confused because the destination is off.  They say don't worry about it and se sit down.  I ask one of the other travelers where they are going and they say what's on the board (Austin, TX) and not where we are supposed to be going (Minneapolis/St Paul).  Now we are really confused......right then our names get called up to the gate.  We are now really wondering what is going on.  We get up there and they inform us we are going to Austin but will stay on the plane and it will continue to Minneapolis.  Then they churn out another $75 in vouchers for us.  

Bottom line it was a hell of a day (basically on the road for 24hrs) with three different Los Angeles area airports, Austin, and Minneapolis with only one airplane involved.  But they were nice and helped us all while giving us $450 in free vouchers for our troubles.  Game was great.....Vikes beat the Bears but to cap it all off we ended up with Covid from the trip.  Ain't travel great!

ETA:  I almost forgot.  For the trip back home we got the same email cancelling our Monday flights (but this was on Saturday morning).  We decided to not worry about it and about an hour later we got another notice saying they booked us on different flights (only slightly changed the time) and we were good to go.  We didn't have any real issues on the return so the moral of the story is don't be too proactive in re-booking as that can cause a lot more confusion than just letting them do it (if you have time to let them).  

Funny, I paid for part of my current trip with $300 vouchers we got because our luggage didn’t make our connecting flight on our way home. They offered to either deliver it to our house the next day or $300 in vouchers if we drive to the airport and picked it up ourselves. Since we only live about 20 minutes from the airport, it was a no-brainer to go grab the luggage myself and snag a $300 voucher in the process.