Southwest Airlines’ record-keeping is good — very good.
First up, to be honest, like many travel agents, I don’t book Southwest that often. The airline that has, or had, a warm fuzzy relationship with consumers is difficult for those of us in the industry to work with for our clients. It used to be different. Their record-keeping is merciless.
Southwest was the last major US carrier to regularly pay commissions to agents. But that was back in the Herb Kelleher days. He retired in 2001 but stayed on the Board of Directors. Southwest cut its 5 percent commission two years later. And the airline used to be sympathetic to problems. No more, according to a good number of travel agents.
In February of this year, Southwest executives, but not the company President, testified twice before a Senate subcommittee. On February 16, 2023, per The Washington Post, Senator Maria Cantwell sent a letter to Southwest COO Andrew Watterson, reiterating her request for answers to questions she said he didn’t adequately address.
“At the hearing, I asked how many tickets Southwest canceled and you did not provide a clear answer,” Cantwell wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post. “I also asked how many people received refunds and did not get a clear answer. The Commerce Committee deserves clarity on these questions.”
This struck a chord. Anyone who doesn’t think Southwest has detailed records on everything has never fought one of their debit memos — bills they send travel agents who break one of their rules.
Debit memos are the bane of a travel agent’s life.
Here’s an example. Some years ago, I booked four one-way reservations from San Jose to Burbank in November for late December. These tickets were for football fans for a potential trip to the Rose Bowl. They were amazingly inexpensive, I think $69 one way. The travelers were going to decide if they wanted to confirm within a day but didn’t get back to me. I didn’t ticket them, but I also didn’t cancel the unticketed bookings before I left work. I did cancel them in the morning. No problem, right?
Wrong. Months later, Southwest sent our agency a bill for $400 for illegally holding inventory. I explained the situation and said we were holding the bookings because the client would confirm. No dice. Their attitude was that the reservations were in our system for more than 24 hours and they consider that a potential loss of revenue and a rules violation, even if it was only a few hours past 24 hours.
I kept fighting. “But the tickets were inexpensive, around the holidays, and you probably could sell them for more.” The woman in accounting admitted that, yes, they know the plane ended up being sold out, but that’s not the point. “The debit memo is valid.”
And agencies have no choice when an airline doesn’t waive such a bill.
I hear these stories regularly. And, I avoid booking Southwest when possible.
That’s one of several stories, which are increasingly few and far between because I avoid booking Southwest when possible.
The most recent bill came from a client who insisted on them last year, booked a ticket, and canceled it 24 hours later. This is allowed by the rules for a full refund. However, he changed his mind and decided to go, albeit with a different return. So I made a new booking and ticketed it and he flew on those flights.
This $100 debit memo was for rebooking the same flight, which Southwest deemed “churning.” Again, I explained. I even pointed out that the client could have booked and canceled per Southwest rules and rebooked himself without being penalized. Southwest responded that it was against the rules for travel agencies, and they had located the original canceled reservation (with a different confirmation number) and ticket. Again, their final answer was, “The debit memo is valid.”
These responses, backed up by details, were just from people in accounting, presumably relatively low-level as they are spending their days chasing $100 at a time from travel agencies.
The claim that Southwest does not have records from last December is ludicrous.
So the idea they don’t know the details of last December amazes me. I am pretty sure that had I inadvertently broken a rule last Christmas, our agency would have already been charged.
It’s Southwest’s airline and its rules. But when the same airline claims to Senator Cantwell that they can’t quickly get numbers on canceled flights or tickets or passengers, there are very few, if any, in the travel agency industry who believe them.
READ ALSO:
A dozen traveler worst-of-the-worst airline behavior peeves
Sky-high business class airfares — monopolies or greed, or both?
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)