usedtobeimportant

Update:
1) I did get it wrong and mis-wrote. The DOT has the rules not the FAA
2) I filed a complaint with WN and they responded quickly and have agreed it was an IDB (initially said it was voluntary but I pushed back) and they have given me $1350 per ticket in cash as per the DOT rules. This is odd as the DOT rule is 400 percent of the one way fee OR $1350 which-ever is smaller and my ticket was only $230.

Hi,

So I'm a long time UA flyer, 1K for many years and a MM.

But flying back from MSY to SMF yesterday the WN flights were good so I booked them. 6:15pm WN 1482 MSY - LAS, 2 hour lay over and then WN 1518 LAS to SMF getting in at around midnight.

First the good things:

1) The WN passengers are a great bunch. Very positive, accomodating and polite! Not a single DYKWIA.
2) The WN crew were equally polite and nice.

Now the bad things:

1) Southwest has a really antiquated systems i.e. I couldn't track my bags something most carriers have this.
2) Southwest customer support staff has horrible communication skills. Borderline fraudulent. Our outgoing legs were delayed and the gate agent *guaranteed* all flights in LAS would be held and we would make our connections. But of course we did not.
3) The gate agents were equally bad, again saying that all our bags would be at baggage claim (why if we are transferring?) so a whole bunch of people left the concourse to claim non-exist bags and had to re-enter security again losing connections.
4) The system wide failure with the weather packets not being loaded shows a very fragile setup.

Note, I'm not being critical of crap happening (it does to all airlines) but rather their response to it.

We ended up getting home the next day after overnighting at LAS. For all the shennanigans Southwest customer service in LAS:

a) Would not give me a meals voucher
b) Would only give me a $200 voucher saying "that was more than enough"
c) Was very hesitant to give me a hotel voucher and ground transportation. This mean I ended up staying over night at the airport.

Again, nothing wrong with OPs failures but the way they handled it was really poor in my experience.

bloodyeyeballs

So you regularly fly approximately 100,000 miles per year, but you can't afford $100-$200 for a cheap hotel in Vegas and instead slept in the airport?

HighFlyinChar

$200 voucher is more than the other carriers would've given in such a predicament...

usedtobeimportant

So there are two separate issues: i) Compensation which is as you say carrier driven and ii) FAA rules. The FAA requires meal vouchers, transportation and hotel rooms if the delay is caused by the carrier (i.e. crew times out or in my case a vendor had IT issues) and results in a prolonged delay.

I think $200 compensation is as you say what a kettle should expect for being left over night (but when-ever I'd had status with UA or AA they've given me at least double that).

But my gripe is the relucantance and excuses for not giving meal vouchers and hotel vouchers. That is very bad customer service. Reading about the situation of the weather packet vendor having IT issues this morning it appears ALL WN flights were grounded for a few hours so they probably had thousands of people like me so they were being cheap.

usedtobeimportant

Not quite. WN could have:

a) Given me a hotel room and booked me on the 11am flight allowing me to catch some sleep.
b) Flew me out at 6am (after arrving at 1am).

WN refused to entertain a) and refused to give me a hotel room for b) saying I didn't need one. Again as I mentioned earlier, they had a system wide grounding of all planes so they were trying to save money but FAA rules are the rules but I think WN takes adavantage of a leisure travel customer base who are not informed.

HighFlyinChar

Right, it is a low-cost carrier that you do not have any tier status with, not sure what you were expecting...
Be thankful for the $200 voucher they extended to you in this situation and understand it was a system-wide issue and move along.
Won't get far complaining about an airline in their "fan club" section of FlyerTalk.

NoStressHere

Yesterday was hell at Southwest.

I will leave it at that.

(1.5m on Delta and lifetime Medallion here and fly mostly WN these days even though we have 300k DL miles)

smmrfld

OP seems to have unrealistic travel expectations IMO. I typically find WN staff to be as helpful as possible, especially via Twitter DM. Staying the airport wasn’t the best choice. Stuff happens, and you happened to be traveling on a day with major system issues.

Palal

It's not unrealistic to expect hotel/meal vouchers when it's the airline's fault.

HighFlyinChar

OP got $200 voucher...that's more than a hotel in Vegas on a Monday night. Book the hotel and sell the voucher on eBay if it's that big of an issue and move along.
If the carrier provided $200 + hotels + meals for every displaced passenger for a system-wide national grounding coming out of a pandemic, they'd be screwed.

usedtobeimportant

Right. And to be clear the compensation and the FAA rules are two very different things. The FAA clearly states they are supposed to provide meals and hotel when the fault is with the airlnes.

usedtobeimportant

I'm not sure you understand, but the hotel + transportation + meals is not upto WN's discretion. It's a FAA rule. I'll file a DOT complaint today and end up getting it for sure, but they've left a bad memory. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I think they take adavantage of their customer's lack of flying experience.

usedtobeimportant

Yes it was and I heard it happened again today which is a shame. But crap happens to all airlines, it's how they react that matters.

I'm curious on your comparison between DL and WN?

usedtobeimportant

What? Sell the voucher? So you want people to break WN's own rules https://mobile.southwest.com/travel-...rms-conditions "Southwest LUV Vouchers are VOID if sold, altered, purchased, brokered, and/or bartered"

Once again, WN doesn't get to choose which FAA rules they choose to abide by.

_fx

UA left me stuck in SFO for a full 24 hours (on top of a 3 hour delay onboard) a year-ish ago.

Their best offer? $300 voucher. No hotel. No transportation. No meals. I attempted to escalate, and was politely told to pound sand.

Bonus? This was on *full J* international ticket.

So, as you can see, UA isn't necessarily much better than WN when it comes to compensation for non-status passengers.