Mr. July

Here's a new one - since the schedule just got extended, I booked a ticket for April CMH-BWI. Sunday flight, so Fun Fare was the cheapest, Internet fare was sold/blocked, and I don't expect anything to open up - so I'm using travel voucher funds to book.

Went to ticket last night (was checking luggage, so had a reason to be at the airport counter anyway) and it takes even longer than usual, with the agent on the phone for a good 5 minutes.

Ends up that even though the schedule has been extended, the ticket printers won't issue anything past March 30! What I end up with is a ticket listing a March 30 travel date that's crossed out, and the actual date hand written in with the catch-all heart-shaped stamp and agent's notation next to it. The electronic record is correct, and the "SAAS Output" slip shows the right date.

Not too worried about the flight, but can't believe that they pushed the schedule without catching this Following up on the Thanksgiving schedule extension problem (book was extended without peak travel cheap fares blocked, came down 10-15 minutes later, and didn't come back up for a day or so), someone's getting a little lax (or is being pushed to work on DING! and other secondary projects).

By the way, the record printout lists my RR number along with "30SEP1996-1.1[my name]" - didn't realize my date of joining the program was tracked this way - it is something that agents commonly see? and any idea what the 1.1 part represents?

cabinpressure

I still don't understand why Southwest still uses paper tickets. They don't interline with anyone and I think any type of ticket they sell can be issued electronically. Paper award tickets have already been eliminated.

Is there any reason for Southwest hanging on to paper tickets, other than making bump vouchers difficult to use?

bryanw20

Beats me, other than having to upgrade all the airports and train all the agents to do the same thing res agents use/do now. All ticketless would be awesome. With egift cards, are e-vouchers far behind?

But like you said, make it more difficult to use, and like all the rebates nobody mails in, makes more money for the company. Like RR tickets, somethings gotta give if something else is better/easier to use. I could see change fees come into play if vouchers were eaiser to use. Which is worse, a trip to the airport, or now even a letter to HQ, or a constant change or re-issue fee.

just some ideas.

BNAtraveller

Answers to all questions:

When agents add your RR name to the record, it automatically adds your join date to your SSR. Therefore, it should be in your SSR record (FQTVWNNN1)

1.1 = 1 means FIRST LAST NAME on the RECORD and .1 is the FIRST FIRST NAME (i.e. 1.1 in 1.DOE/JOHN represents John Doe and 1.2DOE/JOHN/SUSIE 1.1 is John Doe and 1.2 is Susie Doe.

Bump vouchers will soon be replaced with gift cards. They've rolled them out this month for prepurchased tickets, but very shortly they will be using gift cards as the bump vouchers!