Why are travel agents turning their backs on Southwest Airlines?

Southwest Airlines has one of the most consumer-friendly images in the airline industry, and its “bags fly free” and “no change fees” are a big part of that.
But Southwest does have fees.
As frequent travelers know, “no change fees” doesn’t mean not paying a hefty fare difference, sometimes for even slight flight changes. And standby isn’t allowed.
And while Southwest at one point was one of the friendliest airlines to travel agents, it now has strict fees for professionals who don’t follow their ticketing rules exactly. These fees are substantial enough that many agents may go out of their way not to offer Southwest flights to clients.
Consumers are accustomed to fees at this point, but many may not realize that travel agencies may also get socked with them, above and beyond the basic cost of doing business.
Airlines charge fees — known as “debit memos” — for agent mistakes, which they may or may not waive on occasion. The fees usually cover ticketing errors, the wrong price, an expired fare, or the wrong calculation on change fees.
And these mistakes can be pretty trivial.
British Airways once charged us $100 per person because when we put our agency’s special eight-digit code on the ticket, we transposed a 1 and a 2.
Airlines will also charge for bookings made through agency reservation systems that are neither used nor canceled, which makes sense; it keeps them from reselling the seat.
But Southwest takes it to a whole new level.
The rule is deceptively simple. Ticket within 24 hours or cancel a booking. But if that isn’t done, Southwest charges $150 per seat reservation. Even if it’s a $49 fare.
According to a supervisor it’s always been the rule, but for the past few years they have auditors enforcing it. And there’s no statute of limitations.
We’ve been fighting and have just won a 2013 battle over a booking where a Southwest agent was unable to make a change by phone, made a new reservation for the client on the same flight, and then billed us $150 for the alleged double booking.
But in they end the agency had to pay over $1,000 for other bookings made back in 2013.
Here’s an example of a violation:
On December 7, I held two flights from San Jose to Burbank using a discount fare for December 31 travel. But we weren’t able to confirm and ticket them by the 8th. And I forgot to cancel the booking until the next day. So we had held seats for about 40 hours, but gave them back to Southwest more than three weeks in advance.
And we still got a $300 debit memo.
After trying unsuccessfully to question the bill online and getting a “final notice,” we were able to escalate this to a supervisor. She told me Southwest just doesn’t waive penalties for agent errors in any case. And we had held the space, “discounted space,” she emphasized, for almost an entire day past their rule.
As I discovered, the airline had quite a bit of information on the old booking, down to the minute. When I casually said, “I’m guessing the plane didn’t have empty seats,” she responded, “Oh no, we show it was booked to 143 passengers, which is full capacity.”
“So that means you sold all the seats?”
“Yes, definitely, it was a busy time.”
“So if you sold all the seats, and probably at a higher fare than I had held, and I released the seats 22 days in advance, what’s the loss to Southwest?”
Short version, she said that was not the point. We missed the cancellation deadline by about 18 hours, and we had to pay. Nor was Southwest swayed by the explanation that we didn’t know — other airlines are not so strict — and that it was an honest mistake that we are being very careful not to make again.
Southwest doesn’t release information on how much revenue they make from these debit memos, though I have heard from other agents that the money is substantial. One agent at a multi-branch agency told me they were billed over $16,000 in a year, prompting an order not to book the airline except on Southwest.com.
And, to be honest, many travel agents do not have the time to do that.
Perhaps that’s part of Southwest’s plan: pushing everyone to their website. But corporate travelers in particular, especially those who are more time than price sensitive, often can’t or don’t confirm quickly, and may confirm after normal business hours. It adds up to a strong incentive to offer any airline but Southwest for indecisive travelers.