RedSun

You think this is a good practice??

Now I have a $200 UA travel voucher that expiring in Aug-2019. As I understand, I can use the voucher before expiration for travel any time. This is more generous than the WN's policy that the travel has to be completed before the expiration. I'm not saying UA is better than WN, but for the travel fund alone, it is better.

RedSun

Just want to make it clear. With living in a major metro area, I have access to all major airlines. WN always has a sweet spot in me. I never have had any issues with WN, including the re-booking etc. prior to this experience.

As for the small $ amount, I normally would not bother. But I did not book flight tickets for one other family member. It was better to cancel the original booking and re-book for entire family. Of course, it was a tiny bit cheaper. It was a natural decision.

What caught me off-guard was that after I re-booked the first time with new $$, I had to cancelled the 1st re-booking. It was cancelled within the hour. I remember it is industry policy to cancel within 24 hours and payments go back to original source(s). I never realized that $$ was tainted and the payments would not go back to the original sources. All this was within one hour.

As this to be horrible, I always consider WN to be my sweetheart airline. All of its advertisements carry the sweetheart theme. Before I flew very often out of Dallas Love Field. There is a road in Dallas called "Lover's Lane" and it feels sweet to drive by that road. But a lot of the "sweetness" went away when the phone rep would not bulge with its travel fund policy. Actually she was very rude the way she stated.

Here I just want to share my experience. I never posted anything with WN forum. There was no need. I'd be perfectly ok if everything was clearly stated, like the $200 cancelation/change fee. $60 baggage fee etc. At least I could choose how I travel based on the stated facts. I just do not think we need to through pages of fine prints of WN T&C....

RedSun

Just to keep it short. I think it is a bad or horrible practice for WN in this case. If I added $200 new money in Dec-2018 with $15 from Mar-2018, and I cancelled the booking within one single hour, under normal reservation, the $200 should be returned. But I was upset that it was not returned, but combined with the $15 from Mar-2018. I would not have complained if I cancelled the new booking past the 24 hour period. I'm not sure if this is even legal with bypassing the government 24 hour airline booking cancellation regulation. There was clear cancellation penalty with my cancelling it within 24 hours of booking.

rickg523

So these are the questions I followed this thread to find answers to.
1) Is the 24-hour cancellation without penalty rule applicable to all US airlines (or any airline regardless of flag, operating in the US), including WN?
2) If a refund is due under this rule, does the airline get to choose the method of remittance? In other words, when RedSun cancelled a $200 booking within 24 hours, shouldn't the refund have been through the original payment method, not put into a TTF?
3) Finally, iirc, the last time I cancelled a number of flights on WN (it's been a few years) the funds were separately tagged by PNR, with expiry dates based on their individual purchase. Has that changed? Or could RedSun have left the older $15 alone, and simply rebooked using the newer $200, using it's expiry date? (This assumes WN isn't in violation of the rule by putting the refund of a booking cancelled within 24 hours into TTF).
Thanks.

WillCAD

Well, okay, then, let's do a show of hands:

Who here completely read the complete T&C, including complete change, cancellation, refund, and voucher policies, of each and every carrier you have ever flown, PRIOR to booking your very first flight with them?

I'd wager only a tiny minority have done so even once, and most of them will be those who were burned in the past because they didn't do so with a previous carrier.

RedSun

One important question we should ask ourselves is that, who understand fully the Fed's 24-hour airline cancellation policy? I think it was erected to protect consumer to put the booking (pricing) on hold for 24-hours without incurring any penalty. WN's travel fund practice in this case clearly carries the penalty of 9 months out of the 12-month period.

RedSun

Here is the Dec-2019 cancellation of the Aug-2018 original booking (with Mar-2018 $28 travel fund):

Travel Funds
Date: August 3, 2018 Payment Amount: $28.00
Gift Card xxx
Date: August 3, 2018 Payment Amount: $50.00
Gift Card xxx
Date: August 3, 2018 Payment Amount: $66.98
Refund to: Travel Funds
Date: December 8, 2018
Refund Amount: $144.98
---------------------------------
First re-booking:
Travel Funds xxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $144.98
Gift Card xxxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $33.02
Gift Card xxxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $28.98

------------------------------
Cancellation:
Travel Funds xxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $144.98
Gift Card xxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $33.02
Gift Card xxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $28.98
Refund to: Travel Funds
Date: December 8, 2018 Refund Amount: $206.98

------------------------------------
2nd Re-booking:
Travel Funds xxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $167.96

------------------------------------
Cancellation:
Travel Funds xxx
Date: December 8, 2018 Payment Amount: $167.96
Refund to: Travel Funds
Date: December 9, 2018 Refund Amount: $167.96

----------------------------------
Final booking (forced somehow)
Travel Funds xxx
Date: December 9, 2018 Payment Amount: $39.02
Travel Funds xxx
Date: December 9, 2018 Payment Amount: $167.96

------------------------------------------

All the above activities were within 24 hour period.

The amount was not significant. To the end, I was just fine with it. But I just did not feel WN did the right thing. I was just putting the reservation on hold to finalize the travel within 24-hour period. I never thought I'd be penalized for cancellation within the 24 hour period.

nsx

Similarly if you use a gift card and cancel within 24 hours the funds are not returned to the gift card. They remain locked to that passenger name, unlike the original gift card funds.

Tanic

Actually tickets were purchased.

WN does not have reservation holds, however within 24 hours they offer the option to refund the non-TTF portion of the ticket to the original form of purchase, with the exception of LUV vouchers or gift cards. Assuming the ticket was cancelled inside the 24 hour window you might be able to recover the non-TTF balance as a new voucher by calling Customer Relations.

RedSun

I called Rapid Rewards customer relations during the bookings. The answer was NO, NO and NO....

I just feel by having its own refund policy, WN is circumventing the Fed's 24 hour cancellation regulation.

Tanic

Might be worth a snail mail to the Refunds Dept. I would ask for the gift card amounts to be returned as a new LUV voucher, since the tickets were cancelled within 24 hours. You won't be able to get the TTFs refunded.

https://www.southwest.com/html/custo...-info-pol.html

Critterlynn

Maybe you should contact the Better Business Bureau.

RedSun

Not sure if I want to spend more energy on this. All was done and I cleared all the travel fund etc. Most important thing is that family member traveled as planned during the busy holiday season.

Just like to share this and at least I learnt something from it. I never before posted at WN forum and I thought WN is the easiest airline to fly with...

NoStressHere

Chuckle
Laugh
Eh-haw!


BBB is really pretty much a joke. (previously owned two businesses)

Critterlynn

Can't be any less effective than complaining about it here.