I just got my refund for the return flight which they cancelled. I'm debating filing for any additional costs, which is less than $100 out of my pocket.

Still zero communication from them on my cases.

I haven't either, but I don't have much hope in getting anything. I took a flyer and submitted my unused VRBO on the basis that a near complete schedule cancellation over a multi-day period was unprecedented and well beyond the risk that a traveler should be willing to assume under the assumption of normal course operations.

They owe us at least $1300 just in cancelled flights. I had another $1200+ in expenses to get us all home (6 paxs and two different cancelled flights).

Just got my refund for the flights I originally booked on SWA. Still waiting for reimbursement for alternative travel expenses.

So my BF's cc is showing a refund of the five tickets from LGA to HOU. But no email notification at all. And they still owe him $40 for a boarding upgrade that he didn't use.

I haven't logged into my RR account to see if they gave me credits back for my son's flight.

And no offer of 25k RR "bonus" points.

Edit: No return of the flight credits to my either my or my son's account. Also, he had a flight credit of $47 (unrelated to this fiasco) and now that's gone, too. It was there as recently as a day or two ago.

TXTransplant said:

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So my BF's cc is showing a refund of the five tickets from LGA to HOU. But no email notification at all. And they still owe him $40 for a boarding upgrade that he didn't use.

I haven't logged into my RR account to see if they gave me credits back for my son's flight.

And no offer of 25k RR "bonus" points.

Edit: No return of the flight credits to my either my or my son's account. Also, he had a flight credit of $47 (unrelated to this fiasco) and now that's gone, too. It was there as recently as a day or two ago.

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They seem to be going through a step by step process. I got 25k for each of the 3 tickets impacted as I paid with my miles. Then a day later, miles for the unused portion of two tickets was credited. Couple of days later miles returned for my niece's round trip. Yesterday a couple of the security fees were credited back to my card.

I suspect temp expenses require higher level review and approval and from previous experience refunding boarding position upgrades is an extra step.

They could also be prioritizing customers based on A-list status, customer history, Ouija board, etc.

Keep after them, but it may also be just as effective to wait a week or two until some fo the dust settles and a bulk of complaints have been addressed / refunded.

So, I called customer service earlier today. There was an 18 min wait time, so I put in for a call back. Never got one. I got busy doing other stuff and didn't call back. Maybe tomorrow.

I got the call back, but they put me on hold for about 10 more minutes once they called. WTF?

My bag is back. I got a call back in like 30-40 minutes.

Almost ready to book another SW flight….

mpl35 said:

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Almost ready to book another SW flight….

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I already had two trips booked over Spring Break. One for my son and one for my BF and me.

And who am I kidding…we will probably keep flying SW when my son goes to college in the fall.

WSJ reporting that this may cost SWA up to $825 MILLION.

Update: just got off the phone with SW. All of these claims have been pushed up to corporate and there is pretty much nothing customer service can do except resubmit my claims.

We are still missing a $40 refund on a boarding upgrade for our LGA to HOU flight. She said they are still working through how to reimburse OOP expenses for alternative travel arrangements.

My son's flight was fully refunded, including the leftover portion of the travel credit to a different card (the missing $47 credit). The original flight credit went back to a purchase on June 18, and I guess I used my alternate card for that and just forgot.

I should have gotten emails about the 25k RR points. The rep was sort of able to look into that but wasn't able to figure out why we haven't gotten them. So she's submitting another claim and a specialist should be getting in touch about that.

As a side note: They recycle confirmation numbers. When she pulled up one of mine, it coincidentally was for a person with the same first name as my BF. But the flight was in March or May (can't remember which) and originated in ATL. She eventually found our correct booking, but as if this situation isn't complicated enough!

They recycle confirmation numbers within the same calendar year?

LostInLA07 said:

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They recycle confirmation numbers within the same calendar year?

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Idk. I booked this ticket back in June. Maybe the other number was booked after Jan 1, 2023…? You'd think they put a little more time between them.

You can thank all the fraudsters out there for why this will be a slow process. SW is gonna need a small army to get thru these claims and that doesn't come together immediately

DannyDuberstein said:

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You can thank all the fraudsters out there for why this will be a slow process. SW is gonna need a small army to get thru these claims and that doesn't come together immediately

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You bet the China and Russia bot armies are being redirected to file claims. Would be interesting for someone to peruse the dark web. I am sure for a bit of crypto you could get the instruction set, draft email, faux (or even real) customer data and file a claim.

Heck, they are probably good enough that you will get a response faster than a legit claim. Southwest will expect a certain amount of this and write it off vs continuing to piss off legit customers.

fka ftc said:

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DannyDuberstein said:

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You can thank all the fraudsters out there for why this will be a slow process. SW is gonna need a small army to get thru these claims and that doesn't come together immediately

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You bet the China and Russia bot armies are being redirected to file claims. Would be interesting for someone to peruse the dark web. I am sure for a bit of crypto you could get the instruction set, draft email, faux (or even real) customer data and file a claim.

Heck, they are probably good enough that you will get a response faster than a legit claim. Southwest will expect a certain amount of this and write it off vs continuing to piss off legit customers.

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I thought having to have the confirmation number would help prevent fraud. But now that we know they are reusing them…

You'd think they would have taken those confirmation numbers out of circulation for this very reason.

The directions are on their website. It's just the same link they've always used whenever anyone has a complaint. You don't have to have any special email, link, or code.

The fact that my confirmation code has already been re-used makes me wonder if that person got my email with the 25k RR bonus points.

Reused confirmation #s are certainly an issue and likely part of their outdated IT issue. However, there is a trade-off with super long confirm #s, because the more your confirmation # looks like a USPS or UPS tracking # with a bazillion digits, it creates slowdowns and headaches of its own. A 2nd data key used properly is necessary

Regarding the RR points, the only thing linking me to the tickets that I received the customer service points for was the fact they were "purchased" using my RR points.

I never put in any RR numbers, if the passenger has their own, when booking with my points. Keeps the res "cleaner" in case there are issues. I also almost always put in my email and phone number as the contact info for the res.

I book about 20-30 reward tickets for myself and others each year (for the last 10+ years). Issues arise but I have never not had SWA make me whole on a situation. Just keep after them as you have been.

I didn't purchase any of our seats using points. But the only RR numbers I put on the reservation were mine and my BF's. His kids didn't have numbers. And I used my name, email, and phone number for the contact info on the ressie.

My son's reservation was booked under his RR account, but I set that account up originally, so all communication comes to me.

I do find it interesting that the bonus points for BOTH of our reservations are "missing".

I feel like "keeping after" companies has been the story of my life lately. Seems like with almost every cc transaction I end up on hold with customer service.

Our flights to ABQ from HOU (Dec 28 - Jan 02) were canceled as our dates coincided with SW's meltdown.

The skinny is our flights were canceled about 36 hours prior to departure and I didn't hesitate to go to Plan B and rented a car for the trip. (This was after I tried to find a flight on the same day and couldn't find one.)

I did get the email from the SW CEO and got my points which have already shown up on my account and just today I received my refund from SW to my CC. I also submitted gas, hotel and car rental receipts last week and was given a Claim Number, but I'm not really confident that they'll reimburse me for the extra expenses. I'm thinking they'll probably just give us extra points or vouchers to use for a later date.

I know its generally verboten to reference another web forum, but Flyertalk has been around 20+ years at least and is an incredible source of information for travel planning, airline programs, hotel programs, etc.

Lots of threads dealing with the meltdown. Should be able to find someone with a similar situation as you experienced and see what SWA is doing.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/southwest-airlines-rapid-rewards-501/

Some positive news here. We finally had our bags delivered to our home from our 12/23 cancelled flight from DEN To Bush. Bags are pretty dang dirty and beat up more than they were when we dropped them off but all contents (including the marriage certificate) are safe and sound. Now comes the process of waiting on refunds for everything else! At least things are happening now.

Friend got 25k and $200 travel voucher for his troubles

I just checked my account, and I was moved to a-list. My cancelled flight on 12/27 would have put me at a-list and they honored me taking it. If you were close on a status, and had a flight cancelled, i'd reach out to them.

GrayMatter said:

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I also submitted gas, hotel and car rental receipts last week and was given a Claim Number, but I'm not really confident that they'll reimburse me for the extra expenses. I'm thinking they'll probably just give us extra points or vouchers to use for a later date.

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Update:

I just received an email from Southwest saying they approved my expense receipts totaling a little over $1k and are going to reimburse me through Hyperwallet.

Color me impressed; I guess they're really trying to win my business back.

How did they contact you? By email?

I'm still over here waiting for my 25k RR points ~eyeroll~

I don't even recall what this was for.


"Thank you for contacting us. Due to the nature of your request, we are escalating your email for further review, and we'll do our best to get back to you as soon as possible."

sirhc said:

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I just checked my account, and I was moved to a-list. My cancelled flight on 12/27 would have put me at a-list and they honored me taking it. If you were close on a status, and had a flight cancelled, i'd reach out to them.

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I reached out to them on the 28th about this. The sent me the reimbursement request submission form. I appealed to them again saying I didn't need that, just flight credit to get me to preferred. I've received two emails since saying it's been escalated higher up the chain. Still waiting.

TXTransplant said:

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How did they contact you? By email?

I'm still over here waiting for my 25k RR points ~eyeroll~

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Yes, they sent me an email with the following verbiage:

Quote:

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Thank you for submitting your receipts for expenses incurred when scheduled for travel on Southwest Airlines between December 24, 2022, and January 2, 2023. Once again, we are truly sorry for the inconvenience you experienced.

Reasonable requests for reimbursement for meals, hotel accommodations, and alternate transportation (e.g., rental cars and tickets on other airlines) were honored. Any other request such as lost wages, credit card interest, expenses requested with handwritten receipts, etc. were not honored.
Please know that we have reviewed your receipts, your final amount for payment is....

If you do not receive the email from Hyperwallet within the next few days, you may want to check your junk/spam email folder. At this time, we consider your reimbursement request complete. If you have any questions, please visit our Contact Us options on Southwest.com.

Your business is important to us, and we hope you will give us an opportunity to welcome you onboard soon.

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The rest of the email explains how to get my money through Hyperwallet/PayPal.

wtf is hyperwallet?

M.C. Swag said:

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wtf is hyperwallet?

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Maybe I'm just old but sounds like something a scammer would ask me to download to send money

lol 100%