Southwest recently announced that they were going to make some extensions on Travel Funds, Southwest Companion Pass, and even A-List Member Status. Travel funds that were expiring from March 1, 2020, through September 7, 2020, will now expire on September 7, 2022. Normally, if you cancel a Southwest Flight within 10 minutes of flight departure, you will be given Southwest Travel Funds. The Travel Funds will then expire one year from the date of purchase. That is great for Travel Funds, but how about extending those Southwest LUV Vouchers?
Southwest Travel Extension
Under the new policy, they are extending customers’ funds that are expiring between March 1, 2020, and September 7, 2020, AND any NEW travel funds created because you cancel a flight between March 1 – September 7, 2020. All of the mentioned date cancellations will now expire on September 7, 2022. They are giving you a two-year extension on your travel funds.
What are Southwest Travel Funds?
Southwest Travel Funds are funds that are issued when you cancel a flight, or you change your flight to a lower fare on Southwest.com, and get the difference back in a “Travel Funds” bank.
These funds can only be used for the person who was originally issued the ticket. In the past, you had to keep track of these Travel Funds, but as of December 2019 sometime, Southwest actually made it super easy for you! When you log into your Southwest Rapid Rewards Portal, you can see right at the top a “View Travel Funds” button.
Simply click the “View Travel Funds” and you will be taken to a new screen that shows all of your travel funds starting on December 3, 2019. If you had any prior, you can simply use the “Travel Fund Lookup” on Southwest’s website.
Extending the travel funds will help alleviate stress on customers who have upcoming trips planned that they may have to cancel. I totally forgot I had Travel Funds Expiring March 14th, 2020. It was a nice surprise to see my $35.84 in travel funds had already been extended to September 7, 2022!
NOTE: I have talked with Southwest, and they mentioned that they are manually and individually extending each and every Travel Fund. So if it is not updated yet, just give it some time. They did mention to me if you had funds that might be expiring, or expired and they are not extended, you can actually call Southwest and they will put your ticket price on hold up until one week prior to booking the flight to give the funds time to show up in your account. This actually could be another ‘hack’ I am thinking of but thats for another day.
Southwest LUV Vouchers
One of our readers brought to my attention he had some LUV Vouchers expiring that day, April 19th, 2020. He asked if these would be extended as well. I really didn’t remember reading it in the emails Southwest had been sending out. I searched their website and again came up blank on their Corona Virus News page.
LUV Vouchers are vouchers that are typically issued at the airport for some type of travel mishap. It could be an overly delayed flight, missing baggage or volunteering to get bumped from a flight. Here is an example of a LUV voucher.
Note: You can use a LUV Voucher to book a flight for anyone. It does not have to be to the original issuer of the voucher.
I did some google searches and could not find any information about the LUV vouchers. So, I went to twitter and asked.
I DM’d them the voucher information, and they were able to help me out with a 6-month extension! It seems a little odd that they were extending travel funds through September 2022. So it didn’t make sense why they weren’t seeming to match the LUV vouchers, and instead only giving a 6-month extension.
How to extend your Southwest LUV Vouchers
A thought popped into my head, and I was almost fairly certain I have done this ‘trick’ before. So I decided to pry for a little more information. I asked what were to happen if we used the voucher, but then had to cancel the flight. Assuming we would have used the voucher within the six-month time frame, so we would have had to book by October.
I then asked if you get a Travel Fund at this point or if it would be refunded back to the Southwest LUV Voucher. My friend Sarah at Southwest stated that it would then be attached to the passenger under the typical confirmation number.
Interesting, I thought
So I hatched a plan.
How to EXTEND your Southwest LUV Voucher
Step 1:
Book a NEW Southwest flight using the Southwest LUV Voucher that was before September 7th, 2020. Remember, they are only extending canceled fares through then. *See note below*
Step 2:
Cancel the Southwest flight.
You can simply log into your Southwest Rapid Rewards account and click “cancel flight” in the lower corner under My Trips.
Step 3:
Take note of your Southwest Travel Fund Number. This number is the same number as your confirmation number when you booked the flight.
Step 4:
Check your Travel Funds to ensure the tickets now showed up in your Travel funds.
That’s it! You will now see it in the travel funds. If it does not right away show up as a September 7, 2022 expiration date, just give it a week or two. Remember, these expirations are being manually updated so it might take some time.
Note: Since these will not be transferrable after you use the LUV voucher, make sure you are booking for someone who will utilize the Southwest Credit.
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card
EX: If you have Southwest Companion Pass, you might want to book for the companion pass holder. So I currently have Southwest Companion Pass and I can add anyone to my flight. If this situation were for me and Dave, I would have most likely booked the flights under my name only so I could book tickets with the vouchers, and Dave can still fly for free, just pay taxes.
Let us know if you have any questions! I hope this helped!
One Response
Once you have SWA extend the voucher, it cannot be extended again. But a move across the county nipped travel. I just lost 800 dollars. Im very blue