The Customer Relations rep told me that there was this particular policy..that if the customer were delayed between 1-3 hours, she could offer a $50 gift certificate as compensation..

Here's the whole story for those who wanted more information...Flight 652 from Las Vegas to San Diego was supposed to leave at 8:10AM. The website and flight departure boards at the airport all said that the flight was on time. At about 7:30AM the gate agents announced a 1 hour delay; incoming flight from Kansas City was in the air and would be late arriving. Well, that flight was scheduled to leave Kansas City at 4:40AM local time (Las Vegas local time). So they knew much earlier than 7:30AM that it was going to be late in arriving. The gate agents blamed "weather" for the delay. Around 8:30 they announced that our flight was cancelled. They said the flight from KC was cancelled even though they said it was in the air and had a weather delay. We were told to schlep across the C terminal to another gate and we'd be rebooked on flight 1214 at 10:05AM. Gate agent there (who said she was a supervisor) said that Flight 562 from Kansas City had a mechanical in the air and would unload its passengers at Las Vegas and then be ferried up to Sacramento for repair. So far, conflicting stories. Reservations also had conflicting stories on just what happened in their system. In my opinion, very poor information from Southwest; they could at least have the same story...From what I could get from the gate agent, and the info that Customer Relations had, this was a mechanical and not weather related although the originbal delay they sited might have been weather related.


Flight 1214 pulled back from the gate on time but sat on the taxiway for 30+ minutes and was 30 minutes late arriving into San Diego, givng me an almost 2:30 delay which was due to a mechanical.

Perhaps the "policy" only applies to mechanicals, and not weather dealys..

I don't fly Delta all that often, but I have received unsolicited vouchers of $50-100 mailed to me for mechanical delays that were in the 2-3 hour range...perhaps this is Southwest's version of that (although I had to complain about it)...I booked an Award ticket on AA last month for my wife in F; her flight out of DFW on the outbound was delayed 4 hours; she got an e-mail from AA saying that they were sorry for the inconvenience and were returning 6000 miles to her AAdvantage account out of the 45000 paid for the roundtrip . This was also unsolicited.

Obviously, delays happen. My main gripe was the way it was handled by Southwest. I felt they should have listed the flight as delayed much earlier, and that they gave misinformation to the passengers. That was my main complaint. If it had just been a delay and they had handled it better, I probably would not have complained.