rsteinmetz70112

I think they have expanded the language, but it falls under the previous COC language.

ursine1

Wait. Is this new? I though that the flights they had cancelled were being refunded as travel funds?

So... worst case scenario, they cancel one of the bookings and give you a full refund?

dukesilver

FYI, just had my flights cancelled for different destinations/same day (A-B,A-C). I then re-booked so that they were on consecutive days and so far they haven't been cancelled (its been 48+ hours since booking).

nsx

They canceled both? I've only seen them cancel one or the other.

Often1

Worst case scenario is that WN cancels both. Second worst is that it cancels the one you really wanted and you can't get it back.

dukesilver

They cancelled the most recent reservation.

ursine1

I've seen no reports of both flights being cancelled.

It is, however, possible that they might cancel the most desirable (to you) flight, and there doesn't seem to be a clear criteria for determining which flight gets cancelled.

My point with the post was that, at worst, a flight gets cancelled but you get a full refund for that canceled flight -- not TTFs.

This is surprising to me.

joshua362

If this could be figured out, one could force refundability of a WGA fare by overlapping it with a AT/BS fare in theory? Food for thought...

Carpboy823

Only if they book the WGA fare second, I'd think, which kind of defeats the purpose.

ursine1

It's not always the second itinerary that gets cancelled.

We need more data points, to better understand which parameters effect the selection of the flight to be cancelled.

One suspects that in the case of a BS and WGA conflict, Southwest would prefer to keep the BS money, and always cancel the WGA, which would then mean this could be a method for forcing refundability of a WGA fare, as joshua362 suggests.

toomanybooks

Maybe they will cancel the WGA and then place the freed-up newly available seat back into the BS bucket.

mek17

Most recently booked? Or the latter of the two flights?

Dom Bologna

Data point that did not get cancelled.

I had points bookings for BWI-DTW on April 30th departing at both 1215pm and 550pm. Flights were booked in January.

There was no auto cancellation. I cancelled the 550pm late on April 29th when I realized I would be not staying later.

Perhaps the system realizes that it would be conceivable that I'd be in DTW for an hour and then return to BWI.

GrayAnderson

I was wondering about this sort of thing in re the "no multiple trips on the same day" rule. I know RR doesn't work that way, but I could easily see some situations where someone needs to "run in circles" for status and it leads to bouncing back and forth between two high-frequency airports (DAL-HOU comes to mind here).

There are also some explicit "edge cases" I could think of involving clumsy rental car returns and the like: A WGA ticket might well be cheaper than a bad one-way rental fee (or, on some airlines, a change/cancel fee when something goes haywire in booking), so I could see a trip that involved (for example) the following:
Fly HOU-DAL early. Grab rental car that needs to be returned to HOU (or drop a car that needs to be positioned there for reasons involving a clumsy ticket), drive back. Catch late flight out of HOU back to DAL and onwards.

Most of what I'm thinking applies to other airlines, but I could easily see a situation where you can get two relatively cheap one-way tickets somewhere but they involve using different airports. Again, these are clearly non-standard edge cases but stranger things have happened.

ursine1

According to this Facebook post today, Southwest's system automatically cancels the most expensive of the two flights. Which seems surprising.