lauriellovestravel

Having a difficult first international travel experience with Southwest. Posting so others can be warned. I made our reservations in June when they first announced service. Reservations were not able to be done on line at that time, I don't know about now. I spoke with someone at the international desk who also had a very difficult time making the reservations. Ever since then we can not access our account online. I am told it is because there is an international reservation in it. Should go back to normal after our international flights are completed, or so they say. We have had 6 months of not being able to fully access our account. Even though I gave them our middle names so the tickets would read identical to our passports, they did not use them for some reason. Often confirmations don't include the middle names because the fields are small and our names are long. So I did not worry about it when I got the confirmations. I wasn't concerned until this morning when I went to do the online check in. I expected to see our middle names on that, but they were not there....So I called, spent 45 minutes on hold, and they said because middle names were not in our profile online it did not autopopulate correctly. Our profiles were set up years ago when all you needed was a first and last name. Southwest should have known from day one that you need middle names on international air. I called this morning to see what was going on. They said the only thing they can do is cancel and rebook, which means we lose our fare AND our seats.....or try to fix it at the airport. I asked for a supervisor and was told "they don't have them". Very unhappy that we may not be going anyplace for our anniversary tomorrow and cannot try to resolve until getting to the airport. Our hotel package is not refundable.

sbrower

I have seen very few posts to make me think that the lack of middle name will actually be a problem. I will be very interested to hear an update.

LegalTender

No excuse for this happening. There should be an agent's ID attached to that transaction. It's THEIR responsibility since passenger middle names have been protocol for years.

Southwest had a notoriously steep learning curve with international rollout. It's not like they didn't have a subsidiary's booking system to imitate.

pinniped

+1.

You'll be able to fly tomorrow.

My passport shows my entire middle name. I don't think I've *ever* had a boarding pass print my entire middle name. I've never had an airline employee or immigration official anywhere in the world say anything to me about it.

But that doesn't excuse Southwest's utterly amateur technology department.

SacTownGuy

My experience with Southwest international is we made rezzies for Cancun a couple months ago. They called last week to say our flight home was cancelled. They could re-schedule us to the Bay Area, instead of Sacramento, without charge. Flights not until January so plenty of time to switch to a different airline but frustrating. Plus, they will give all money back.

pinniped

They aren't entirely pulling out of either CUN or SMF, are they? Something seems strange about them having no way at all to get you back to Sacramento. (I'd believe understand it more if they had no way of getting you out of CUN to begin with.)

alggag

My guess is that a schedule change to fix the on time numbers probably broke the connection.

So far my experience has been shockingly smooth to fly HOU-SAT-MEX tomorrow. OLCI went off without a hitch also. One upside of the international reservation system is that I was able to complete my OLCI and my companion's in the same transaction.

pinniped

Ah... Guess that could make sense, although you'd think that the agent would have explained a third option: overnight at the connecting city (Denver?).

Granted, I'd probably just accept OAK and be done with it, but I'd be a little annoyed if I wasn't given the entire story.

I also *kind of* struggle to see how there wouldn't be *some* routing home, going east to west, unless the only flights out of CUN at all are in the afternoon. Is that WN's primary approach to international? Fly in in the morning, out in the afternoon, not leaving any aircraft on the ground overnight there?

alggag

From what I understand that is indeed the case at the moment. I believe that I remember reading somewhere that AUA either is (or was?) the only station where either the pilots or flight attendants are required to overnight due to legal work hours or whatever but that the planes all fly in and out again in the same day.

schmoove

My only advice with international is to put your passport info in when you book your flight. You can't check in without putting that info in and I haven't seen any way to add the info between the time of purchase and check in. Every second is valuable when you are trying to check in at t-24.

tatterdema

My experience has been that this problem is not just with WN. I am having a similar issue right now with AS. I have had the issue with FI, and I have had them with DL. It seems anytime I use my middle name it causes issues. Sometimes it gets mixed in with my first name, sometimes with my last, sometimes just the initial goes in....

MrMan

So did ticket counter fix and you got on your flight as agent suggested?

emrdoc

My middle name is added onto my first name on all my Delta boarding passes and it has never been an issue on multiple international trips. This is a lot of concern about a non-issue.

tatterdema

No, at least for me, it has never been an issue with travel itself. It is an issue with attaching my FF number, with checking in online, and with changing flights. In other words, issue with the airlines themselves.

emrdoc

My response was directed more at the OP who was in fear of the travel itself. I have also never had trouble with any of the areas you have cited.