I recently received the dreaded email from Southwest that read “we’ve made a change to your upcoming trip”. Living life on a pretty tight schedule, these changes often don’t tend to work in my favor. Of course, that was the case here. My flight was originally booked for after-work departing at 5:40 pm. Now I see that I’m scheduled to fly at 12:35 pm the same day!
Included in the email, Southwest is offering the opportunity to change the flight. The changes allowed were to any other flight within 14 days of my original travel date for no fee.
The blurb from the email read:
“In the event this new itinerary does not work for you, we are offering the one time opportunity to change your flight date(s) and/or time(s) by up to 14 days from original travel date at no additional cost in accordance with our established re-accommodation practices.”
I clicked the link provided and toggled around to see what was available. NOTHING direct flying out that evening! This is the exact reason why I booked the flight that I did and paid a little extra for it. Looking at the following day, I came across a few direct flights in the morning that fit my schedule and it seemed like that was going to be my only option to move forward.
BUT then I remembered that those flights were actually much cheaper when I originally looked at booking. I also know that Southwest always credits back your account if your flight price decreases or you change to a less expensive flight.
I logged back into my account and clicked change flight under my upcoming trips.
Next, I selected the flight and updated the departure date.
AND there it was!
A $51 dollar credit sitting there waiting for me.
So the moral of this story is don’t always take the first option available. I was annoyed and almost clicked through but I took a step back and found a more rewarding pathway. Given that I’m flying to Chicago, I may have to celebrate this #BasicTravelWin with some Deep Dish Pizza at Giordano’s.
The last time I was there, we actually somehow paid more for Pizza then we did for our flights and hotels!
You can find that Delicious article here
