TEDSTRIKER

The most annoying thing I have found with the change to capacity control of award seats on each flight is that the southwest web site will only let me see open award seats if I have free award tickets available in my account.

The problem occurs quite often that I may need to alter my return flight, but I can't see the alternate flight availability because my current return flight is using the award.

I know I could cancel of the return seat and then see awards, but this is risky as the availability might be worse than the original flight.

This has caused me to call customer service more since the change than I ever have before while I ask them to search for open award seats as I would have done 10 years ago before the system was in place.

Do others experience this problem?
Is Southwest looking into fixing this?

This has become the most annoying part of using Rapid Rewards (just slightly more annoying than capacity control) in the last year.

lougord99

I have never understood their logic on this issue.

peanutsplease

You can use change itinerary through travel tools. Pull up your existing reservation, indicate that you want to change the return. Put in the new return date, and then check availability.

If seats are available you can change, or if you were just checking and don't want to change - simply exit and your reservation will remain as it was.

TEDSTRIKER

I tried changing this as suggested and received the following error:
============
What happened?
Your reservation contains modifications that prevent you from changing it online.

What you need to do:
Please contact a Reservations Sales Agent at 1-800-435-9792 for assistance with your reservation.
============

Because I did not know about this option, I made the reservation by phone with an agent. And this used a confirmationo number that was part of a previous reservation. So all this probably confuses things enough to disallow the on-line change.

But I will try this as suggested with my next on-line reservation.

Thanks.

peanutsplease

Yes, it must be booked online to be able to be changed online.

Also, even if booked online, once you make changes offline (through reservations) you can no longer make changes online - you get the error message that you described.

Hopefully this will still save you some stress on your next award booking!

TEDSTRIKER

Thanks for the assistance.

Now if I can only convince Southwest to go back to blackout dates instead of capacity control for Rapid Rewards all will be right with the world again.

TheRoadie

Once when I got that message about being locked out of on-line changes, I asked the res agent what was up. They said after a certain number (2? 3?) of online changes to the record, they did that. Either they're trying to "punish" the customer for changing their mind too many times, or trying ineffectively to prevent pranksters from fiddling with your record.

It also could just be that too many folks were using the "change itinerary" feature to map out possible seat availability for many, many flights or city pairs, possibly in support of selling an award to a third party, that they just locked it down and made you call in. That's my best guess.

nsx

I'm guessing that the database has a limited ability to record itineraries on a single record, and that Southwest wants to retain a complete audit trail. I.e., Southwest does not want to erase any of the former itineraries to make room for the new one. I doubt it's anything sinister.

This, by the way, is the same reason I usually cancel and re-book my own trips rather than using the change itinerary feature. One record locator per trip, whether cancelled or flown, makes it easier for me to maintain my Excel list.

TheRoadie

That doesn't quite explain why a human res agent can change it, but on-line changes are locked out, unless the audit trail has different lengths for us and them.But the OP was about RR changes, where you can't just safely cancel, and you can't check for seat availability without having another award active. Your idea is good for paid trips, and I've done it myself.

curbcrusher

I don't know the details of your reservation, but there is no limit to the changes you can make online.

Once a reservation has been modified by Reservations it is locked out of online changes. This is because Reservations has the ability to book itineraries that the website cannot currently handle, and the website can't be sure that Reservations left the reservation in a state that it is capable of handling.

It's nothing sinister.

TravelerMSY

Having to login *before* seeing the inventory drives me crazy. I might want to check the availability before I have the award in hand.

This might be to slow down people who are using awards that were earned by others.

rrgg

Gosh it seems like they should permit an award search if you merely have an award in use or available for use. I'm stuck in a catch-22, forced to book 2 awards by phone due to a website problem, and now can't check availability without calling. Sigh.

sammy0623

this didn't really bother me, until this whole booking for my trip to cali thing...

luckily, i have my brother's RR# and PW to use to check availability, since he has an award

peanutsplease

You have 3 options -

1. As you mentioned you can call and they will check availability for you.

2. The seatfinder tool can be used without an award to find days that have availability (its available on the account snapshot after you log in) - this does not go to the specific flight level, but at least shows you if an award is available on the day you're looking for. Its also a month view so you can see dates around your day that may be available.

3. Probably the easiest. You mentioned you already have an award booked - you can go to the Travel Tools area and use the change itinerary feature on the reservation you already have. You can start the process of changing ( you can change dates, times, and destinations) to check the availability of your new routing - and then simply leave the process without comitting to any change. This will let you check the availability, while leaving your current reservation intact.

rrgg

I don't have those 3 options.

1. Sure, but spending 5+ minutes on hold every day is unappealing.

2. The availability calendar is useless to me. I want 2 passengers moved from a 6am flight to a few hours later. 9pm is always available so the calendar is a false positive for me.

3. No I can't. As I said I was forced to book the awards by phone. Once that's done, the change itinerary feature does not work. I tried it. I hope I'm wrong.