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southwest-cancellation-policy-logoAwhile back, I wrote about Southwest’s cancellation policy, which is in my opinion the best in the industry.  Basically you can change or cancel any Southwest flight at any time before you fly, and you’ll receive Southwest credit back to your account.  If you want to fly a more expensive flight, you’ll only be charged the difference in fares (with no extra change fees), and if your flight is LESS expensive, you’ll receive a CREDIT back to your account

Monitoring your reservations

It’s always a good idea to monitor your upcoming reservations.  In addition to Southwest flights, you should still monitor your upcoming flights even on airlines where you have no status and where you’d have to pay to change anything.

If the airline changes the schedule, you may be able to get a more advantageous routing at no additional charge.  Taking advantage of this is how I got us 16 extra hours in Rome for FREE!  It’s also how we changed our 3-stop flight on an angle-flat seat to a more direct route for our round the world trip (free of charge once first class space opened up)

One of the best ways to use your Southwest airline miles is to make sure that you are always checking for airline fare sales.  Because you can cancel and change on Southwest for free - Southwest essentially just paid me to take same flight.

Changing a Southwest reservation

I am planning on going to the upcoming Family Travel for Real Life conference in April, in Orlando.  This morning, I was checking my reservation and noticed that the flight prices were (slightly) lower.  So, going to my Trip page from My Account, I hit “Change”

southwest-change-account-page

Going through the wizard, I picked the EXACT SAME FLIGHTS, and at the end, came to this screen

southwest-change-flights-example

I could have picked different flights, and I looked at a few other options, but the only other possibility was a Friday morning flight that leaves at 5:30 a.m. and a 5:30 a.m. flight in a city 2 hours away is NOT my idea of fun!! Yes, in this case the savings is only $8, but $8 is better than nothing, and it came for no additional price other than a few minutes work!  Always monitoring your Southwest flights for updated prices is a good habit to get into!

Have you ever used Southwest’s updated change policy to save money on a flight?


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