Southwest Airlines
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Beware of Travel Funds + Fees = United like policies
I'm an "A lister" flyer with SWA for many years, typically achieving companion status each year even during COVID. I used some travel funds ($19) that were expiring to book a trip but had to cancel shortly thereafter. When I canceled, the entire amount of my ticket was "tainted" by the travel funds expiration date (never knew that). Thus, if I applied the expiring $19 to the $200 ticket, the entire $200 ticket is now subject to being used by the expiration date of $19 of funds. I called in to SWA, as advised by the agent, to get an "extension" to use the funds only to find out they take $100 of the ticket price, remainder extended. Effectively i had one week to use the total amount of my cancelled ticket, otherwise the 100 fee kicks in. To me, this was a little slimy. There is little to no notice of this when you use travel funds. Next, and perhaps more surprising, when I asked SWA to waive the fee due to lack of notice they told me they couldn't. I was pretty annoyed. I'm a huge advocate of SWA and fly them almost exclusively. That said, I was taken back by their unwillingness to budge. I spend tens of thousands of dollars flying a year, mostly on SWA. Is it really worth losing a loyal customer over $100 to United? United has similar prices and better routes with the same types of fees. The whole reason I started flying with SWA was flexibility. Its a tough time for any airline and always difficult to keep customers in any ultra-high competitive industry. To loose an incredibly loyal customer over $100 (because I'm that annoyed by all this) is unequivocally the most ridiculous policy I've ever come across.