On Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 1:15:03 AM UTC-5, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 03 Mar 2021 23:51:21 -0500,
wrote:

On Wed, 03 Mar 2021 16:22:04 -0500, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 03 Mar 2021 15:18:02 -0500,
wrote:

On Wed, 03 Mar 2021 02:34:24 -0500, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 03 Mar 2021 01:37:49 -0500,
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Mar 2021 19:35:36 -0500, micky
wrote:

OT but not politics

Last year I made a plane reservation to see my brother in Florida.

Southwest.

After I canceled it they said I had a year to use the money.

IIRC, not all the airlines make it that simple, but what do I know.

It's getting on to a year, so today I looked it up on their website, and
they had extended the expiration from March 10 to September 10, without
my doing anything. A friend had the same thing happen to her. Because
of Corona, I'm sure.

So that's good.

What's not so good is that last night I looked all over the SW website
and couldn't find a trace. It took me a long time even to find Travel
Funds, but there, without the ticket confirmation number, it's just
blankness. No indication there is anything in the fund.

It's not that hard for an organized person to find his email reservation
from a year ago, but it also wouldn't be hard for SW to just tell me
what's in my travel fund. Anyone know why they don't?


It didn't just want my password, which it already required to log in,
but the confirmation number from a particular ticket. So I had to not
just remember what airline it was, but actually find the ticket or other
correspondence to know the confirmation number, from a year ago, more or
less. What would have happened if I'd had a crash and no backup? Or I
was quarantined out of town or unable to re-enter with only my laptop
and the ticket was on the PC at home? Why don't they just tell me
what's in the Travel Fund?

What would have been if I had two or three canceled tickets, I don't
know, but I think you need every confirmation number. And I think they
show each ticket on a separate page, though how you get separate pages,
I don't know. For someone who goes on more than one trip in a month or
has children coming from different directions, etc., very easy to forget
one of your flights and that you have money on deposit and let the year
expire. Or next fall, let the 18 months expire.

And don't forget, they have your money interest-free to use as they
choose, so it's not like they're getting nothing for this.

Did you look at your "points" account?
I never screwed with Southwest, they don't have 1st class but Delta
and NW before them used points like chips in a casino. Everything was
just points with them. If they owe you a flight they may have just
given you enough points to get that cost of ticket. You can always
throw more money at it for an upgrade (buying more points) if you
decide to go somewhere out of that fare corridor.
Like I say I don't do SW but I bet that is how they work.

I have a few points. Not many. If the price of the flight goes up
since a year ago, I'll try to use the points, or I'll use money. I
think it was $157 rt Baltimore to Ft. Lauderdale last year.

I suppose you could Email customer support and see what they did.

The points are correct. My only complaint is they make it so hard to
find out how much is in a travel fund. I don't see any good reason for
requiring the ticket confirmation number. The only reason I can imagine
is hoping customers will forget they have such credits.

That 6 digit alphanumeric number assigned to each flight is how they
reference it in the computer.
I was a computer programmmer for years. Any good system lets you find
records using any field, such as, let's think about this, My Name.

I agree. That you have a credit should show up in your account, without needing
to enter anything.