LUV Voucher Torpedoed my Travel Funds (tainting and expiration)
 

My usual experience with SWA turned from Delighted to Exasperated. I booked a RT flight to LAX in June of this year. The $300 + fare had to be canceled due to illness. I booked using my SWA CC. I did use a LUV Voucher for $50 and that was the issue.

Apparently the reservation adopts the "expiration date" of the voucher, in this case August 2019. I found this out after trying to apply my "Travel Funds" for a November flight. Two calls to SWA, with the last being to Customer Relations. The net result is they could give me an extension of my funds after deducting a $100 fee, each way. This would include another voucher.

I did receive a bit of a lecture. In order to claim a travel credit you must use the locator ID of the original reservation. I also must review the reservation receipt for any fine print.

The initial gesture of a "$50 Luv Voucher" cost me $250.

Assuming I am following you:

The combining of funds with different expirations makes the whole amount take on the soonest expiration.

Unfortunate and kinda underhanded, I agree.

But this is nothing new. It is right on Southwest’s website:

“Southwest LUV Vouchers must be redeemed and all travel completed by the expiration date indicated. If applied in conjunction with any other accepted form(s) of payment, the earliest expiration date of all payments applies.“

Ugh. Didn't not know vouchers taint the TTF.

Why $100 x each way = a $250 loss though?

They should be able to convert the entire PNR to a voucher for a flat $100 deduction, IIRC. True? Better than a sharp stick in the eye...

WN giveth and WN taketh away.

It is flexible on cancellations and changes, but expirations and refundability cannot be comingled. Or more precisely, they can be but the most restrictive or least favorable terms apply. That is common to the rest of the industry.

I actually got knocked on this yesterday when booking a flight; I called in and learned the same thing from Reservations. Thankfully it was only $30 I lost along with the $86 of expired funds, but I definitely will be cognizant of this in the future.

It's mentioned on the voucher and again when you apply the funds online, but many people fail to read the fine print.

FYI: Fee should be $100, unless there were 2 people on the confirmation.

My story is even sadder.

I don't usually purchase Anytime fares but this time I knew I would need to change or cancel. So to be safe I bought any Anytime fare. Only I used a gift card (which has no expiration date) for $200 and topped off the difference with my CC. When I canceled, the entire amount became non refundable with a 1 year expiry date from the date of purchase of the ticket. I was expecting that the amount paid on the Gift Card would go back to the Gift Card and the amount paid on the CC would go back on the CC.

Eventually I did end up using some of that credit but definitely lost a fair bit. I stopped using WN gift cards since.

FYI: In this situation the $200 becomes travel funds (with limitations) but a call to Customer Relations would have returned the CC amount to the CC.

I'm sorry that the OP had this experience, but the rules have been discussed over and over again here. Yes, there is quite a bit of flexibility but you have to understand the rules. Just this morning, a new WN flyer was saying that they "were going to buy tickets as far ahead as possible and use re-faring to get TTFs". I pointed out that you must be careful because of the strict TTF expiration date. You want to strategically use TTFs to minimize the possibility of tainting future tickets.

OP is new and 98% of the customers don't come here either. So they would not know about tainting and how we discuss it frequently. On the other hand, the rules at the other airlines are worse. I've thrown away a number of other airlines' $50-$200 tickets because of their change fees. I've lost a number of small Southwest vouchers because I wasn't willing to taint the CC funds. Losing money this way is part of doing business although I've never tainted an entire big ticket and have the whole thing vaporize.

Not that I have received many Luv vouchers, but another reason I usually book one-way tix.