Southwest Airlines never used to charge change fees. When other airlines matched this during the pandemic, they went a step further: their flight credits never expired. So instead of losing the value of a cancelled ticket after a year, you’d retain it forever. That meant it was easy and low risk to buy travel from Southwest, and they reported that the cost of the change (after an initial one-time hit) was quite small.

However, as part of the Elliot-ization of the airline, Southwest travel credits now expire:

• After 12 months from date of issue
  
• Or just 6 months for basic economy fares

In fact, if you buy a basic economy ticket for travel six months from now and cancel close to when it’s time to travel, you can wind up getting nothing. The travel credit isn’t valid for six months from when you cancel – it’s six months from when you bought the ticket. Advance purchasers get penalized significantly.

But now that the new rule has gone into effect (May 28), there’s another wrinkle. It’s only supposed to apply to tickets purchased going forward. But people making a change to their tickets are seeing this, too. It’s concerning if someone bought a ticket that came with unlimited same day confirmed changes and no travel credit expiration, but now gets just one change that forces a six month expiration.

Real world experiences show that while Southwest’s public line is that tickets issued before May 28 keep the old ‘Wanna Get Away’ fare rules—two free checked bags, no credit expiry:

• Free confirmed same-day changes still work for legacy WGA tickets – but you must go through an agent (phone, chat, or gate); the website/app now tries to collect the fare difference because those channels don’t yet recognise the grandfathering rule.

• Some confirmations show the new “Basic” coding even though the agent insists the flight retains legacy perks; so far, bag charges have not actually been assessed at the airport.

• Confirmation e-mails sometimes warn of six-month credit expiry, yet “Travel Funds” in an account displays “No expiry”—it’s not yet clear which is an error.

• Quoting internal “A-List same-day change honoured on pre-28 May WGA fares regardless of travel date” seems to get a supervisor override; agents use the INVPLYP or “PRIROPS” mask to retain legacy coding.

The rollout of new Southwest Airlines rules has neither been consumer-friendly nor smooth.

(HT: Keith)