NoStressHere

You know what else they do that blindsides folks?

They make you get there at least 15 minutes before the flight leaves. If the schedule says 10;19 departure,I should be able to get there at 10:18.

I like to place my bags on the seat next to me, but nooooo.. they make me put them under the seat in front of me. What crap is that?

Speaking of bags, they have put limits on the size? What? Or, how about weight?

The list goes on and on.

Jane42

I am a WN fan....and my son and daughter-in-law are also. Why? Because being in the military means cancelled leave with short notice. This is this is the only airline, to my knowledge, that does not charge them $150-200 to change their flight. Dealing with an chronic illness, that gives little notice of when treatment will be changed, gives me less worry when booking flights.

But I will agree. If you don't read all the ins and outs of the use of travel funds (which I didn't either..., it does catch you unaware. But it is not their fault...just our fault for not checking it. if you only lost $20, consider yourself luckly. I don't think I have ever lost more than $40 due to this policy, but I know I lost $150 on United due to needing to change my ticket to get to my ill father faster!

I will take the WN policies any day.

Blitzjb

Re-booked for $4.00. Is that a joke?

Peoriaman1

Its gotta be a typo, A misplaced decimal, perhaps. Maybe it was $40?

expert7700

I took it as the OP rebooked it due to a price drop and saved *$4.00*. which using the $4 travel funds expiring mm/dd/yy tained their money... which they wanted to cancel and hold on to for later reuse. (due to another airline having a sale)

alas, the horrors: they still want to travel and travel on those dates. they are just stuck with the airline (Southwest) that they booked the 1st and 2nd time.

unable to book the basic economy competitor

nsx

+1. It's the price of having funds re-use, but it does bite a lot of people.

toomanybooks

Gig103

Thanks for posting about the earliest date being applied to all funds. I would have been blindsided by that too and would have expected each credit to have its own 12 months.

Proudelitist

Penny-wise, pound foolish.

Often1

The COC are clear and in plain English.

"Travel Credit Eligibility. The expiration date of any travel credit will apply to any Tickets purchased with these funds. If a Ticket is purchased with multiple travel credits, the earliest expiration date will apply to the entire Ticket."

azepine00

Op outlined his experience and highlighted the policy (that may not be obvious to those who dont travel WN often) to others.
I can only thank him/her for that. Perhaps exaggerated use of "horrible" but really no demands or blaming anyone in the post - just lessons learned..

Not sure why so many see the need to get defensive and post "go read toc" comments..

Often1

Because this is a public internet forum and the answer to OP's assertion that WN is "horrible" and others' that they were blind-sided, all comes from a simple failure to check the rules. That is a good lesson learned,

Peoriaman1

You're right; it was probably the exaggerated use of "horrible". Not the best way to get much sympathy.

WiscAZ

I had the same issue come up on AA years back. Can't remember the specifics but booked travel in around February for a May wedding. Couple weeks before the flight the wedding is called off. I cancel and "assumed" (Shame on me) that I had a year from then to use the credit. Come back the next year around March to book and the credit is no longer usable. It was about $900 after the AA change fees that I lost. Live and learn.

RedSun

To be honest, I did not know of all this when I did the bookings. Or I would not have bothered with the re-bookings. To make it even worse, I changed the Dec-2018 booking and cancelled within two hours. Then the new $$ was comingled with the old $15 Travel Fund. I thought I'd get all payment back since this was cancelled within 24 hours.

As most of you have stated, SW has its T&C. And the SW agent was adamant of following its refund policy. She said the refund policy is much better than other major airlines. I agreed to some extend. But I figure there are just a lot of SW tiny small prints behind its "industry generous" refund policy. I just figure some of the SW advertisement is mis-leading. Consumer have to learn the hard ways....