Using "Saved Funds" on Southwest

When you re-book a Southwest flight at a lower cost, leaving those "funds" in your account to use on a future flight, be sure to "save" that RESERVATION NUMBER someplace, and the fact that you re-booked and now have "Saved Funds" from it.  Write it on a printout of the res, or a boarding pass, something and save it.  Because, when you go to use those funds for the next flight, you must enter that RESERVATION NUMBER, like XQYB7 from which the funds were earned in order for the system to retrieve and apply them toward your new reservation.  

You don't have to know how many dollars are in your account since that populates automatically, once you enter that RESERVATION NUMBER (and your name) from which funds were saved.  But you gotta have that reservation number!!

Hey, anything to make booking travel less stressful, right?

Thanks! I didn't know that about the confirmation number, so you learn something new every day! 

I would imagine that if you lose your confirmation number, they can look it up for you, but it can take a while to get through to somebody on the phone.

Here's the link for the travel funds page:

https://www.southwest.com/flight/travel-funds-search.html

Mike

Good info!  I am fairly new to using SW

Welcome aboard! Southwest Rapid Rewards is one of the best programs around. It's easy to use and you can redeem on any flight where seats are available. 

Mike

I like SW but the lack of non-stop cross country service deters me

i do use them when shuttling around the west 

I am using them next month to fly from Phoenix to LV

I'm with you. You can't beat them for the short-haul flights. Unfortunately, their low-cost business model was built for shorter O&D (origin and destination) flights. O&D is simply a fancy way of saying "non-stop traffic between two cities," and differs from the "hub and spoke" system of the major carriers. Short, non-stop flights are their biggest winners.

That Phoenix-Las Vegas route is the type of thing they love.

Mike

Although SW does offer longer non-stop routes.  In my case, Nashville to Vegas is non-stop, and is usually  cheaper than other carriers, too.  Now when Spirit starts non-stop from Nashville to Vegas in October - we'll see.  But I also know Spirit charges you to breathe air.

Tommy

Spirit has some good points, but one thing I don't like is when they do offer a flight with low (5000 points each way) points you can redeem they still hit you with a lot of gov't charges and other charges and luggage and seats, all you save is the base flght charge of $40 each way.  Your FREE FLIGHT still costs you alot.  SWA free filght is FREE except I believe for $5 and if you want early bird.

Unfortunately, Jokare, this is no longer the case.  Here is a listing of fees (RT for 2) on SWA to/from Las Vegas:

 - U.S. Transportation Tax          $37.30

 - U.S.  9/11 Security Fee           $22/40

 - U.S.  Flight Segment Tax         $16. 80

 - U.S.  Passenger Facility Chg     $18.00

Maddening.  But not a thing to do about it other than don't fly. 

No Candy I was referring to SW when using miles you get charged your miles and I think $5. Spirit takes your miles and then adds all the charges back on, so your FREE flight costs quite a bit.