Originally Posted by
ursine1
Yes, they've been better than most. But it's a low bar. And since some customers had to book and then cancel a dummy flight to extend their funds, a work-around that Customer Service never suggested nor even confirmed would work, I'm not sure I'd give them high marks for transparency. It's important to keep in mind that Southwest was only "generous" to a subset of their customers. The customers who are now losing their funds are the ones who took CR at their word, who in good faith repeatedly rebooked their itineraries (and never received any funds extension) or whose fund's expiration's fell outside of the covered period.
This. To take advantage of their generosity, I would have had to intentionally try to hack their system against all their normal posted policies (e.g. that a canceled flight booked with a travel credit retains the original travel credit's date).
I don't, by the way, think they have any obligation to help. I canceled a non-refundable ticket in February, and then a pandemic hit. Why should they eat the cost rather than me? The only answer I can really think of is that they got lots of our tax money, but that's a pretty weak argument since that was for jobs. But I do think it's a bit scheme-ey to have a loophole for hyper-engaged customers and leave everyone else out in the dust. (Note that hyper-engaged customers are not necessarily the highest spenders: not every frequent traveler has time to be keeping up on the forums.)