Hi all,
I have a small (but substantial enough) flight credit with the 9/07/22 expiration date from 2020 extensions. I also have a larger LUV voucher which expires in November. I’m trying to plan the safest way to use them, knowing that flights frequently get changed/cancelled, with lowest risk of losing these or additional funds due to combined expiration date. I’m seeing some people say online that if you use the 9/07/22 expiring funds to book a flight and then cancel it, the new expiration date is one year from when you used it. I believe that was true when the new date was earlier than 9/07/22, but I wonder if that is actually happening now that one year would extend the expiration date out past 9/07/22. Does anyone have any experience with this recently?
I have some funds expiring the same time. It would be nice if there was a way to extend past the 09/07 date. It’s not a whole lot but $80 I paid for and may or may not be able to use by then…
Following, hopefully someone here has a bit more insight into this.
I don’t think they are extending expiration anymore, perhaps if Southwest cancels flight, but not you. Be careful of new booking assuming the old travel fund expiration dates. Any new flight using old travel funds/voucher, assumes the original expiration date. You could book a $1000 fare and apply $50 of travel funds, and the $950 would assume old expiration of $50 travel funds. Try to book 2 one way flights and use the flight credit and voucher on one leg. Pay for the other leg as a new purchase with your credit card.
I totally agree with @pbateman to book the flights separately. Yes, a lot of SW flights got cancelled this weekend but in all the years I’ve flown with SW (almost 20), only once have I had a flight cancel and it was due to Hurricane Matthew. We had to spend three extra days at Disney. I have had more delays from SW over the last several years but when you think about probability and likelihood, your flight would more than likely happen. The probability of it getting cancelled is small. It can happen, but it’s small.
Decided to experiment since I found out my DD’s also have 9/7/22 credits which I had forgotten about. I needed to combine credits and funds so I can use them all.
I booked a sham flight to combine my 9/7/22 credit with the remaining balance on a gift card. I also had to add $2.45 on my southwest credit card. When I canceled it, the flight credit and gift card amount combined and kept the expiration date of 9/7/22. However (and this was on the desktop site) it did give me the option to have a refund of the $2.45 from my credit card.
Now to book another sham flight to combine my and their credits. I wish they allowed more than 3 forms of payment!