pinniped

Is there a phone number with no hold time and agents trained to create bug reports?

I've tried talking to various WN employees before about the many IT defects related to the RR1.0-RR2.0 transition. The two responses are (a) total ignorance combined with a complete "not my problem" attitude or (b) acknowledgement that the entire transition was handled poorly, the system is full of bugs because there was little testing...combined with a complete "not my problem" attitude.

laxabq

I would think the phone reps are trained to make reservations
and answer questions. I would send complaints of an IT nature
to the corporate office. This is where the managers must be.
Does SWA outsource their IT dept or is it handled internally?

Any thoughts why their system is so messed up? Certainly,
they can see how much money they are losing with all these
issues? Is it just me or is the Titanic~SWA sinking?

laxabq

any thoughts on the above?

texashoser

Ran into this problem today, which is similar to the problem noted in my last entry to the 'problem index' in my first post.

Booked ticket for my children using points. Filled out purchase form and clicked 'purchase.' I fully expected the UM pop-up asking if the traveler was traveling with an adult companion or not. Since my daughter is traveling with me and mom (who is traveling as my companion), I used my wife's PNR to avoid the $50 fee. When I was redirected back to the purchase screen, not only was the credit card info blanked out, but all the passenger information (including RR number) had now changed from my daughter to me! When I corrected the passenger info using the available link, that action must have reset something as when I clicked 'purchase' for the second time I was looped once more in the UM pop-up. After putting in my wife's PNR a second time, once returned to the purchase screen (for the third time) all the information was correct and I was able to purchase the ticket.

The same thing happened when I tried to book a ticket for my son only that instead of all my info being used as the traveler after associating my wife's PNR to the ticket, only the RR number was wrong: it inserted my RR account number, but at least my son's name was still there. Changing the RR number resulted in the same pop-up behavior and me having to reenter a PNR a second time to avoid the UM $50 fee.

And each time you're redirected to the purchase page, the credit card information disappears, of course.

I don't know if this is a browser issue, only happens when you try to book with points, or only occurs when you use a companion PNR to avoid the $50 fee vs. the companion pass holder's PNR...

ftnoob

Thanks! ^ A thread like this with an index and status was on my "want to do" list for a long time. I appreciate your work on this!

ftnoob

This smokes the anniversary sale fares!



Even stranger:

dlaue

I would book with points.

texashoser

It appears the problems with cancelling car rentals on the WN website along with booking fares using points have been fixed, at least for the most part...

ftnoob

The flight search input form on the current travel specials detail page is even more screwed up than the main flight search page.
(I seem to recall a time when the fare specials page actually worked better than the main flight page.)

ftnoob

From over two years ago:
It was annoying when the right column log-in feature was added to the web site and it didn't seem to remember any of my logins on any of my computers. Then we had the RR 2.0 transition and once again, this time on the revamped login page, form auto-complete failed on all my computers. So I'm thinking, how many different names for one data field are we up to now, and when will it end? For those of us that manage a half dozen, dozen, or more accounts, this is a lot of wasted time "teaching" multiple computers, each perhaps with multiple browsers, to remember our login. And to compound matters, the right-column login form never seemed to learn a single account number.

Over the weekend I discovered something odd: the right column account number field suddenly had a whole bunch of IDs available for auto-complete!

After a moment I remembered that I had disabled JavaScript to test a thing or two. When I enabled it again and refreshed the page, the form went back to zero remembered IDs!

After a bit of analysis I determined the cause of the problem is the "Watermark" jQuery plugin that SWA is using. ("Watermark" in this case refers to the technique of putting the field label inside the text field instead of above, below, or next to the field. This is necessary in the revamped web site because so many pages have such extreme amounts of (often useless) content that there is no room for normal field labels.) This particular jQuery plugin apparently doesn't even offer the option to leave autocomplete enabled when watermarking a form. (I've seen at least one jQuery watermark plugin that lets the programmer choose whether or not to disable autocomplete; which is not to say that is a good or better plugin, just one thing to consider.)

We could create pages and pages of annoyances like this. Many would add to the evidence suggesting that the designers and/or programmers of the web site seem to have never actually used southwest.com (or any other travel web site).

curbcrusher

Twice in about as many weeks now I've cancelled tickets with partial or total refundability, and the funds were held for future use despite clicking the "Request a refund of the refundable balance" radio button.

divemistressofthedark

Tonight the website wouldn't accept any of three credit cards I entered [for payment of my Early Bird fee and $5 RR Award ticketing fee]. These included my WN RR Visa. Nothing about that card has changed since I opened it three years ago. I just paid the annual fee; it isn't maxed out; and I haven't moved or changed any other information. It works just fine everywhere else. I'd like to use it at Southwest.com so I can accrue the benefits [double RR] that I was promised when I opened the card.

Error: I called I FLY SWA and waited on hold for nearly a half hour - never did get a CSR - to find out what was going on. After repeatedly typing in my WN Visa number and hitting 'submit' - a total of ten or so tries - it finally went through. I have no idea what changed or why.

OK, so I finally get the charge to 'take' and decide I'd like to rent a car. I scroll through the options, make my selection, hit 'continue' and...

So. I'm currently sitting on hold yet again - after a half hour I have yet to receive an email confirming my original flight reservation, just two that say parts A & B of one of my RR awards have been used. Of course, no itinerary information or confirmation number is given. I need this data to book my husband on the same flights and I'd like to do it tonight to ensure we get the flights we need.

At this point I have no confidence I even have a reservation, as it doesn't show up anywhere in my account. It's not in "Upcoming Trips" or anywhere else.

They need to fix this mess, and quick.

dlaue

I had the same credit card issue two months ago. My fix was to delete my stored credit card and then reenter it again, exactly as it was before I deleted it.

By now, I would have thought that this major error would have been fixed.

mritty

I've been trying to buy a gift card for my brother's birthday for over a week now. Everytime I go to complete the purchase, I get:

You'd think that a website error that prevents me from giving them my money would be given something of a priority. Ugh.

uwfballfan

I am so sick of seeing Oops!

I think they outsourced their IT to Laurel and Hardy.