SAPMAN

I have canceled and changed some reservations today. The Ticketless Travel Funds (why call them that???) took an hour to show up. And after using some, took another hour before the balance was correct. They actually told me they were 0 balance while, I guess, the system was processing.

I would have been upset if I missed a low fare or Award (using Funds for payment of fee) due to me having to wait.

And I know it has been mentioned before, but why not show more info in Subject line of Confirmations -- date, city pairs, pax, Resv. #??

nsx

I missed out on 2 of 8 potential Ding purchases Wednesday due to the glacial updating of Ticketless funds. This was about the 5th time I've seen it, so it must be pretty common. Southwest should have fixed this over a year ago. It's un-Southwest.

tusphotog

Same experience the last four days for me. It's hit and miss, actually. Two or three reservations come through about one or two minutes after booking. Others take an hour or two to show up.

Reservations are booked (or edited) anywhere from 8 a.m. MST to 10 p.m. MST.

FCfree

I've had this problem too. Also the problem of booking a flight and then wanting to see it to be sure its right on line. If they haven't faxed it to you, it seems not quite fully updated in the system.

Maybe they are just selling tons of tickets given the stupidity going on at other airlines with bag fees?

It is a problem that should be looked into. When a ticket is sold, why isn't the WHOLE record written into the database? I have had errors where it says my name does not match with what they have on file for that PNR. It is like part of the record is there but not all of it.

Diamondback

I agree that an hour wait in the modern computer/internet world is a long time but I would rather wait the hour then have to call in to a legacy such as US and then pay an additional $100 fee.

LarryJ

I needed to change a RR reservation last week (availability opened up on a better flight) and I just called reservations because I didn't want to risk losing the seat on the flight I wanted if the site was slow releasing my award for reuse. (The particular ward expires next month so I wanted to make sure and use that one now) Luckily, it was SWA res and not the res of any other Major airline and she handled it quickly and efficiently.

Beckles

Why wouldn't you just use the "Change Itinerary" feature in that case?

nsx

Ticketless funds updating is blazing fast this morning. My $49 Ding bookings for LAX-OAK are moving right along...

nsx

I spoke too soon. The web site is doing something I've never seen before. It's releasing the funds right away but short a few dollars. I saw one short balance 1 minute after re-using part of the funds, then a different, slightly larger but still short balance a minute after that. Another 2 minutes and the balance was finally correct. Weird.

I decided to push my luck by booking a reservation with re-used funds even though the balance was slightly short. The extra money shlow up in the PNR a few minutes later. This is pretty squirrelly if you ask me.

SWAVictor

NSX -

To clarify things a bit. The website doesn't actually release or update fund availability. That is all handled by our ticketing system (Ticketless) - the website simply interfaces to that system to get balance queries, etc..

Most of the time the ticketing system is lightning fast, and funds from a cancel or downgrade or released immediately. However like with all technology, sometimes things slow down and need a little intervention to get them rolling again. I have also noticed in the last couple of weeks that sometimes the funds aren't clearing (and new records aren't creating) as fast as we would like them to.

This weekend seems to have been one of those times.

As for your problem this morning - I'm not sure why the funds seem to be "rolling in" slowly. Have you been applying partial funds from that reservation to new reservations?

If you'd like to PM me with some details, I'll be happy to take a look and see if I can come up with an explanation.

nsx

I think I figured it out. I applied funds A and B to reservation X, and that worked fine. Then I applied B and C to reservation Y. B was initially short by the amount of A.

The case where two changes occurred was an extension of this, with the missing funds being equal to the values of two small PNRs I had applied on reservations I made within the few preceding minutes.

SWAVictor

Its important to note that your outbound and return flights each have a dollar amount attached to them, and while you are processing an exchange to a new reservation the entire amount of each coupon can be tied up until processing is finished.

for examply if you had an outbound and return each worth $100 ($200 total) and you were booking a new reservation for just $50 - you would expect to have $150 more to add to another reservation. and you will, once your $50 reservation is completed. But, until its complete you would have $100 because your outbound funds would be tied up, but your return funds would not. Essentially, your outbound flight just became a $100 bill, and you have to wait for the cashier to give you $50 in change before you can go next door and make another purchase.

LarryJ

Would that work? I didn't think of that. Thanks!

Beckles

I think a lot of folks forget about the Change Itinerary feature sometimes ... can make things much easier!

sammy0623

bump

it took an hour from the confirmation screen for me to receive my confirmation email tonight!

i thought something might've been wrong with the CC or something