Fixed 4/30: Additional points deducted for some "free" flight changes 4/26-4/30/21
Apr 29, 2021, 7:16 pm
#46
Join Date: May 2012
Location: DCA, lived MCI, SEA/PDX,BUF (born/raised)
Programs: Marriott (Silver/Gold), IHG, Carlson, Best Western, Choice( Gold), AS (MVP), WN, UA
Posts: 8,735
This was my first time changing a flight that was eligible for a "free" change as I had booked a tpa to cmh 1 stop flight via Atlanta. I was able to change the flight to a late afternoon nonstop ( what I wanted originally) and the screen displayed 0 extra points but I was debited ~400 points to cover the difference. I have no problem parting with the points as I got my ideal flights but is this the end of the free change party?
what I have sern
thus works with points or cash fare...you are free to change a flight if same a to be route to what’s available but you don’t have to pay any extra but things can happen..
(1) say you paid the fist fare at $200 you can change to née flight with no charge but if you look at that flight on its own the fare might be $100 so you don’t get the $100 credit. If you cancel and rebook you get the $100 back.
on the flip side if you booked this at $100 and you change it and you look on its own it’s a $300 fare you can change and the price appears to change because if you later cancel the flight you get back more than what you paid.
i e seen thus many times happen in rebooking but thus hidden bump doesn’t happen all the time.
Apr 29, 2021, 7:29 pm
#47
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 6,606
im unsure what you describe...
what I have sern
thus works with points or cash fare...you are free to change a flight if same a to be route to what’s available but you don’t have to pay any extra but things can happen..
(1) say you paid the fist fare at $200 you can change to née flight with no charge but if you look at that flight on its own the fare might be $100 so you don’t get the $100 credit. If you cancel and rebook you get the $100 back.
on the flip side if you booked this at $100 and you change it and you look on its own it’s a $300 fare you can change and the price appears to change because if you later cancel the flight you get back more than what you paid.
i e seen thus many times happen in rebooking but thus hidden bump doesn’t happen all the time.
what I have sern
thus works with points or cash fare...you are free to change a flight if same a to be route to what’s available but you don’t have to pay any extra but things can happen..
(1) say you paid the fist fare at $200 you can change to née flight with no charge but if you look at that flight on its own the fare might be $100 so you don’t get the $100 credit. If you cancel and rebook you get the $100 back.
on the flip side if you booked this at $100 and you change it and you look on its own it’s a $300 fare you can change and the price appears to change because if you later cancel the flight you get back more than what you paid.
i e seen thus many times happen in rebooking but thus hidden bump doesn’t happen all the time.
What is happening now is a slight upcharge that is probably the new redemption rate.
For example I changed a flight yesterday that I paid 8183 points for, I was then charged 8708 points..........the new flight was like 28K points so they didn't charge me the difference in flight prices but rather the new redemption rate.
I also changed a flight I paid 2596 points for and was charged 2763 points.
I believe this only effects points bookings/changes.
Hopefully WN fixes this without the need to call in.
Apr 29, 2021, 7:38 pm
#48
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Pittsburgh
Programs: Whoever Has the Best Bonus
Posts: 5,183
As expected, I changed a reservation today made before April 13 (when Southwest did the sneaky devaluation of reward points) and this is an expected side effect of how their system cancels and retickets when you make a change. I hope Southwest auto sweeps and corrects this issue as I have no interest to call in and wait.
Apr 30, 2021, 3:51 am
#50
Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 3,705
I hope Southwest proactively fixes this for everybody, even those who didn't notice the issue, rather than making customers do the unpaid labor of spotting it, researching it, and calling in.
Apr 30, 2021, 9:30 am
#51
Company Representative - Southwest Airlines
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Dallas, TX
Programs: Rapid Rewards, IHG/Kimpton, Bonvoy, AA/oneworld, British Airways
Posts: 798
Good Morning all -
Reading through the thread, I want to let you know again that this was not intentional, it only affects bookings made with points (not revenue tickets), we are working on a fix as quickly as we can, and we do plan to proactively restore points and update point activity in MyAccount for all affected reservations.
There are several teams involved in triage, developing the fix, pulling the data for effected reservations, testing and implementing the solution, and restoring the points and account activity.
Unfortunately all of these things do take time to ensure that solution works and doesn't cause additional problems.
At this point, if you're affected reservations are for future travel, I would advise holding on.
Once all of the work has been completed, if you see a reservation that you don't believe got updated properly, then a call would be in order.
If you're affected reservations are for travel within the next few days, you may want to call in to assure its corrected prior to traveling.
Again, we apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this has caused, and we are "all hands on deck" to get this resolved, and I thank you all for providing data that helped us to identify the root cause and enable us to develop a solution.
I will continue to post updates here as they are available.
Reading through the thread, I want to let you know again that this was not intentional, it only affects bookings made with points (not revenue tickets), we are working on a fix as quickly as we can, and we do plan to proactively restore points and update point activity in MyAccount for all affected reservations.
There are several teams involved in triage, developing the fix, pulling the data for effected reservations, testing and implementing the solution, and restoring the points and account activity.
Unfortunately all of these things do take time to ensure that solution works and doesn't cause additional problems.
At this point, if you're affected reservations are for future travel, I would advise holding on.
Once all of the work has been completed, if you see a reservation that you don't believe got updated properly, then a call would be in order.
If you're affected reservations are for travel within the next few days, you may want to call in to assure its corrected prior to traveling.
Again, we apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this has caused, and we are "all hands on deck" to get this resolved, and I thank you all for providing data that helped us to identify the root cause and enable us to develop a solution.
I will continue to post updates here as they are available.
Last edited by SWAVictor; Apr 30, 2021 at 9:47 am
Apr 30, 2021, 11:59 am
#52
Company Representative - Southwest Airlines
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Dallas, TX
Programs: Rapid Rewards, IHG/Kimpton, Bonvoy, AA/oneworld, British Airways
Posts: 798
Good Afternoon -
As promised, I have an update.
The issue has been fixed, and you should be able to make any free changes that you need to without the extra point deduction happening.
For those already affected, our next step is return the points to your account, and clean up your points activity. I hope to have an update on that timeline later today.
Again, we are proactively returning points and updating activity with no action needed on your part - and this is for all affected reservations, whether the Customer has identified or not.
Thanks for your continued patience as we got the issue resolved, and now work to restore your accounts to the proper state.
As promised, I have an update.
The issue has been fixed, and you should be able to make any free changes that you need to without the extra point deduction happening.
For those already affected, our next step is return the points to your account, and clean up your points activity. I hope to have an update on that timeline later today.
Again, we are proactively returning points and updating activity with no action needed on your part - and this is for all affected reservations, whether the Customer has identified or not.
Thanks for your continued patience as we got the issue resolved, and now work to restore your accounts to the proper state.
Apr 30, 2021, 2:23 pm
#53
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 402
Thx SWAVictor -- Between changes to my reservations, my wife's, and various bookings we made for family members with our points, I've pretty much lost track of all the flights that this was affected by.
I could do the forensics -- but have good faith your guys will sort this out. I'll just keep an eye on our points balances to see if there's a reasonable jump after the retro fix gets put in place.
I could do the forensics -- but have good faith your guys will sort this out. I'll just keep an eye on our points balances to see if there's a reasonable jump after the retro fix gets put in place.
Apr 30, 2021, 3:20 pm
#54
Company Representative - Southwest Airlines
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Dallas, TX
Programs: Rapid Rewards, IHG/Kimpton, Bonvoy, AA/oneworld, British Airways
Posts: 798
Final Update!
If you visit your account the points should be returned, and your points activity should appear as normal for a zero transaction.
You will not see a 'manual adjustment' - instead the transaction that was showing the extra points pulled before should now show the same amount of points refunded and then redeemed.
For a single change you should have 3 line items. (Using 1000 points as an example)
REDEEM -1000 points
REFUND +1000 points
REDEEM -1000 points
One last time, thanks for all your patience while we got this sorted out! Have a great weekend everyone!
If you visit your account the points should be returned, and your points activity should appear as normal for a zero transaction.
You will not see a 'manual adjustment' - instead the transaction that was showing the extra points pulled before should now show the same amount of points refunded and then redeemed.
For a single change you should have 3 line items. (Using 1000 points as an example)
REDEEM -1000 points
REFUND +1000 points
REDEEM -1000 points
One last time, thanks for all your patience while we got this sorted out! Have a great weekend everyone!
Apr 30, 2021, 3:51 pm
#55
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 71
Final Update!
If you visit your account the points should be returned, and your points activity should appear as normal for a zero transaction.
You will not see a 'manual adjustment' - instead the transaction that was showing the extra points pulled before should now show the same amount of points refunded and then redeemed.
For a single change you should have 3 line items. (Using 1000 points as an example)
REDEEM -1000 points
REFUND +1000 points
REDEEM -1000 points
One last time, thanks for all your patience while we got this sorted out! Have a great weekend everyone!
If you visit your account the points should be returned, and your points activity should appear as normal for a zero transaction.
You will not see a 'manual adjustment' - instead the transaction that was showing the extra points pulled before should now show the same amount of points refunded and then redeemed.
For a single change you should have 3 line items. (Using 1000 points as an example)
REDEEM -1000 points
REFUND +1000 points
REDEEM -1000 points
One last time, thanks for all your patience while we got this sorted out! Have a great weekend everyone!
Thanks SWAVictor !!!
Apr 30, 2021, 4:49 pm
#56
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Pittsburgh
Programs: Whoever Has the Best Bonus
Posts: 5,183
Confirmed that my point total has been adjusted back (since I knew about the problem, I wrote down my points before I rebooked a flight yesterday, went down a bit, but now back to where it should be). While I'm not a fan of the point value change that caused this issue (especially with no notice) I give Southwest credit for fixing the problem relatively quickly and for everyone who either caught it or did not. Hopefully no one got caught with an unticketed reservation because they didn't have the 'extra' points while the issue existed.
Apr 30, 2021, 5:42 pm
#57
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 6,606
Final Update!
If you visit your account the points should be returned, and your points activity should appear as normal for a zero transaction.
You will not see a 'manual adjustment' - instead the transaction that was showing the extra points pulled before should now show the same amount of points refunded and then redeemed.
For a single change you should have 3 line items. (Using 1000 points as an example)
REDEEM -1000 points
REFUND +1000 points
REDEEM -1000 points
One last time, thanks for all your patience while we got this sorted out! Have a great weekend everyone!
If you visit your account the points should be returned, and your points activity should appear as normal for a zero transaction.
You will not see a 'manual adjustment' - instead the transaction that was showing the extra points pulled before should now show the same amount of points refunded and then redeemed.
For a single change you should have 3 line items. (Using 1000 points as an example)
REDEEM -1000 points
REFUND +1000 points
REDEEM -1000 points
One last time, thanks for all your patience while we got this sorted out! Have a great weekend everyone!
My dads account which did the exact same changes has been corrected.
I did one other change and that also has not been corrected. Thanks
Last edited by flyer4512; Apr 30, 2021 at 5:58 pm
Apr 30, 2021, 10:40 pm
#59
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 402
Thanks. It looks like most issues have been sorted out with the accounts I care about. I see at least one straggler -- which I'm imagining is being caused by a double re-booking (i.e. rebooking once, incurring the bug tax, and then re-booking into another fare at the same post-bug rate). It's not big enough to raise a fuss about ( < 600 points a fare), but if you wanted to do an additional sweep to catch these scenarios that are occurirng, more power to you.
Additionally, if you need help debugging these -- hit me up. We'd be glad to help out
. I think we know what edge cases are being missed without ever having seen the code base 
Additionally, if you need help debugging these -- hit me up. We'd be glad to help out
. I think we know what edge cases are being missed without ever having seen the code base
Last edited by AllThePants; Apr 30, 2021 at 11:38 pm
May 1, 2021, 12:59 am
#60
Join Date: Mar 2020
Posts: 71
Just got this email tonight. Way to go SW!
You recently received an email from [email protected] that indicated additional points were used for travel reserved under confirmation number: xxxxxx. These points were miscalculated in error as there should not have been an additional charge when you changed your reservation.
The additional points have been returned to your account and you will see that the amount debited for your ticket exchange has been corrected. You can review your account balance on Southwest.com®.
We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing you onboard soon.
-Your friends at Rapid Rewards
You recently received an email from [email protected] that indicated additional points were used for travel reserved under confirmation number: xxxxxx. These points were miscalculated in error as there should not have been an additional charge when you changed your reservation.
The additional points have been returned to your account and you will see that the amount debited for your ticket exchange has been corrected. You can review your account balance on Southwest.com®.
We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing you onboard soon.
-Your friends at Rapid Rewards