Mcdonoughdr

This live live today, just need to call in.

Knowing that our schedule will soon be extended past the 2022 holidays, Customers may be contacting us to use their funds that may not have expired yet but will expire before they want to travel. In preparation for the anticipated requests we will be receiving, the decision has been made to temporarily offer our Customers additional flexibility.

Temporary Additional Flexibility - Effective June 1, 2022

$100 will not be deducted: For all Customers who contact us between June 1 and December 31, 2022, letting us know they are unable to use their funds during the RTF validity period, we will issue a Southwest LUV Voucher for the full value of the RTF, which means temporarily, you will not deduct $100 per our normal GOG exception.

No longer required to contact us after the expiration date: Customers do not need to wait to contact us after the RTF expires. Between June 1 and December 31, 2022, If Customers contact us to advise they are unable to use their funds before the expiration date of the RTF and they do not want to wait until after the expiration date to request a Southwest LUV Voucher, we will force close the RTF and issue the SLV immediately. Please explain to the Customer that the SLV will be valid for six months from the issue date.

nsx

This is fabulous. For the first time in years I have quite a few leftover funds. Six months extra will be more than enough to use them.

To save Southwest some work, I will combine the funds into one large fund before I make the request.

Edited to add: Another enhancement without any takeback!

synergistic

This is FANTASTIC news - I don't think I've ever let more than $5.60 expire at a time before, and I was just steeling myself for the risk of combining, allowing it to expire, and hope the $100 was all I lost. I was somewhat worried they'd bin the (unofficial policy of) extensions with transferability.

Just to make sure I'm clear - the language implies that you can still wait for them to expire and request the LUV voucher in December to kick the six months out to the end of June, do I have that right?

FindAWay

Wonderful customer-friendly change! Thank you for sharing.

LegalTender

Reasonable assumption. Otherwise, "SLV will be valid for six months from the issue date" is no incentive to be pro-active.

kennycrudup

I'm assuming the credits have to be unexpired before 5/31?

formeraa

Which department do we need to call to make this happen? Regular reservations or customer service?

danhouston

as in fact is so, most will likely wait & have a voucher good til 6/2023

jphripjah

That's my question too, would prefer to avoid waiting on hold for a long time to do this, is there a recommended number to call?

danhouston

try chat in app; if Rep can't help, likely suggest a contact email or #

jphripjah

This is excellent news especially when combined with this hack that lets you transfer flight credits to other people:

https://www.mypointslife.com/2022/05...away-plus.html

jphripjah

I think the rule before was that they would extend the credits within 6 months after expiration, and for 2022 they had already dropped the $100 charge.

The announcement today is just that you don't HAVE to wait until after expiration, you can extend them before they expire.

I think if you call in before November 30 you should be good.

jphripjah

I was going to do this, but my funds all have different expiration dates, ranging from early September to early April. If I combine them all into one fund, then they would all take the earliest expiration date (early September). And then if I decided in late September that I wanted to book a flight in I'd have to call in, extend the single fund to late March, and use some of it for the flight I want to book. And the rest of it would expire in late March.

So instead I consolidated them all into two separate funds, one fund expiring in September and one in March. This will give me some flexibility to extend the September funds when needed and then call in at the end of December and extend any March-expiring credit to late May.

michy9

After a 30 minute wait, I successfully extended my travel funds for another 6 months for no charge. I had combined them all into one fund and was told SW would be emailing me a voucher within 2-3 weeks . Good thing as they were going to be expiring in a couple of weeks.

jphripjah

My understanding is that you can also extend them up to 6 months after they expire, and you then get six months from the date of extension, though right now they are only waiving the $100 extension fee until December 31.

So, for the benefit of anyone reading, if you have soon to expire travel funds and aren't sure about when you want to use them, you can wait until six months after they expire, or until December 31, whichever is earlier, and then call to extend them and get six more months from that date.

Of course, Southwest could end this free extension generosity at any time so perhaps there is some risk in waiting too.