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Don't try to standby for an earlier flight on a points ticket!

Don't try to standby for an earlier flight on a points ticket!

Old May 4, 2012, 7:49 pm
  #1  
nsx
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Don't try to standby for an earlier flight on a points ticket!

I recently learned why it's a bad idea to attempt to catch an earlier flight on a points ticket.

Here's what happened. Four hours before my reserved flight I learned that I needed to fly home immediately, purchasing a full fare ticket if necessary.

I rushed to the gate, explained the circumstances, and asked to be put on the standby list. I thought the gate agent might give me a break with free standby. No dice. The gate agent said: That will be 17,000 points. Whoa! I said no thanks, I'd rather just buy a new ticket. Full fare was about $200 and it would give me back 32% of the price in points. That was a much better deal.

Since there were no seats on the flight, for the moment the issue was moot. My priority standby status had me at number 3 on the list despite my late arrival. The first two people got on, but I did not.

Just as the last person boarded I received another phone call informing me that there was no longer a need to rush home. Missing the standby cutoff had saved me from buying a full fare ticket! I sat down to wait for my original flight time.

About an hour later I heard a final boarding call for another flight, and thought I would try my luck there for a free standby, something that I virtually never do. This turned out to be a big mistake. A different gate agent added me to the flight and handed me a charge slip to sign. I said "No thanks, I'll just wait the extra 45 minutes." I returned the charge slip unsigned and went to my assigned gate.

I was concerned that my original boarding pass had been deleted, so I went to my assigned gate and asked them to check it and reprint it if necessary. They gave me a new one. The record locator was the same, so I thought everything was cool.

The next day when checking my credit card balance on line I saw a charge for $375 from Southwest. That couldn't be right! I looked at my RR account and saw a purchase of 15k points and a redemption for the points upgrade that I had refused from the first gate agent.

Here's what I think happened. The first gate agent had set up my reservation for a points purchase and upgrade before telling me that it would be 17,000 points. (Points purchase because my RR account only had a few thousand points in it.) The upgrade may or may not have happened at that time. Probably not, since I did not clear the standby list. I have no way to know whether that gate agent created a full fare cash reservation for me under another locator, but I doubt it. Perhaps a new cash reservation could have been created when I cleared the standby list?

When I made the mistake of attempting to standby for the second flight, either that gate agent executed the points purchase and upgrade or the first gate agent had already executed it.

At that point the damage was done, although I didn't know it yet. An unauthorized charge had been made, and now I had to straighten it out. There were actually 4 erroneous transactions: a credit card charge, deposit of purchased points to my account, redeposit of my WGA points ticket, and reissuance of an Anytime points ticket.

I phoned customer service the next business day and explained the whole thing. A nice lady listened carefully and agreed to fix the problem. She told me that she would put everything back the way it was as if the points purchase and ticket reissuance had not happened. Great!

After three weeks passed with no action, I phoned Southwest again. They said that something had gotten hung up but now it was on track, and that I should wait a couple days. I waited a week. On my third phone call they said that it was being worked that very day. By five days later the credit card charge reversal appeared and the purchased points disappeared from my RR account. But the redeposit/reissuance points upgrade remained, representing a net deficit of about 14000 points on my RR account. I phoned a fourth time, this time to the Rapid Rewards department. I explained that the redeposit of my WGA points ticket and the reissuance of the Anytime points ticket both still needed to be reversed.

My RR account records confirmed that I had flown the same flight I originally booked on the WGA ticket. That was crucial. With that information the Rapid Rewards agent was able to get approval to reverse the two ticket points transactions and restore my account to its correct balance.

This whole process used about 2 hours of my time and probably an hour of Southwest employees' time over 5 calendar weeks. I don't intend to repeat it. If you don't want to have a similar experience, here's my advice:

If you have a points ticket and you want to take an earlier flight, you can ask whether your flight is delayed sufficiently to allow a FREE standby. Be absolutely clear about the FREE part. If the answer is no, pull out a credit card. Ask to BUY a Business Select or Anytime fare for CASH, not points, on a NEW reservation. State that you don't want to cancel your points reservation in case the earlier flight ends up being delayed.

Another approach would be to pick up the phone or web page and buy a full fare ticket for the first available flight. This might be the second flight out due to the 1-hour advance purchase cutoff. That's OK, because you will then take that confirmation to the gate and ask to be moved to the earlier flight. Either of these methods eliminates any chance of getting an out of policy free upgrade, but they also eliminate having to spend hours reversing an unwanted upgrade to the confiscatory Anytime point ticket prices.

I'd like to close by stressing that at no time in this process did I ever fear that Southwest would not fix this problem. That confidence enabled me to be more patient and polite than I might have been with some other airlines that are known for poor customer service. A positive and pleasant attitude is always to your benefit as well as that of the person on the other end of the phone.
nsx is offline  
Old May 10, 2012, 4:04 am
  #2  
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
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Thumbs up

^^
Long post but great info & well worth the read. nsx on track, as usual.
johnslloyd is offline  
Old May 10, 2012, 9:10 am
  #3  
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Dallas
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Thanks for the heads up. It would be a wonderful perk to allow A+ to fly standby without the additional $/point charge - hopefully something that will eventually be added.

On point purchased flights - I occasionally purchase two flights on my return day (an early flight and a late flight) to avoid such situations - and cancel the one I don't use to avoid the last minute gouge.
jbdear is offline  

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