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In last week’s post about transferring Southwest credit to someone else, commenter Yochai correctly noted that if your travel funds expired in the past 6 months, you can call Southwest and ask for them to be extended. They will deduct a $100 fee from the value of the travel funds and convert the remaining funds into a LUV voucher, valid for anyone to use for 6 months from when you call in and have it issued.
You can also DM Southwest on Twitter.
Effective from today through 12/31/22, Southwest is waiving that $100 fee, so the full value of the travel funds can be converted into a LUV voucher.
Normally, Southwest won’t convert the travel funds into a LUV voucher until after the funds expire, but through 12/31/22 they will convert if before expiration if you say that you won’t be able to use the funds before they expire.
The LUV voucher will be valid for anyone to use for 6 months from when you call in to have it issued, so you’ll still want to wait until you’re ready to book other travel, up to 6 months from when your travel funds expired.
Will you take advantage of this fee waiver?
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30 Comments On "Southwest Now Waiving $100 Fee To Extend Travel Funds!"
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Anyway to see if I have had travel funds expire recently?
unlikely unless each case is reviewed & approved
I cannot thank you enough for all of your help with this. I have already lost credits that Southwest refused to extend and have more pending! Thank you!
PS will they extend funds that have expired more than 6 months ago?
No. I called about funds that expired Dec. 10. The agent first told me they were too old and could not be converted. Once I pointed out that it has not yet been 6 months, she put in the request.
Thanks
wish there was some way to find out if i have any expired funds.
Should be same as confirmation number of cancelled trip if you can search for emails from southwest. You can then check on https://www.southwest.com/travel-funds/
Darn it! I had travel funds expire 5/5… and called TWICE before they expired asking if they could extend them just 5 days to 5/10 when I would be traveling. The answer each time was NO. I did request the funds a week after they expired & got the LUV voucher… minus $100 the next day. What a bummer they didn’t do this sooner. 🙁
Same here.
Any chance they’d match the current policy for past requests?
Yes, they did this for me earlier today. I had funds that had expired in early April.
now JEBLUE Heroes need to extend, please.
Dan?
Will they also extend a LUV voucher? I have one expiring 7/1. I suppose I could use it for a ticket, then cancel it to get travel funds, but would rather avoid the extra step.
Whens a good time to call them? Whenever I call there is a 100+ minute wait time… Any tricks to getting to a rep quicker?
Try sending a Twitter DM?
I can confirm that Twitter is the way to go. I got a response in 10 minutes. I did end up redeeming the expiring LUV voucher I mentioned above, combining it with travel funds that were expiring the same day. I then canceled the ticket and made the request by Twitter. Because the funds are expiring soon, but not yet expired, she said it could take up to 30 days.
Hi Dan,
I had a travel fund expired on last Feb but I forgot the confirm#. I can’t find the email for that booking. Is there any other way to find it? Thanks!
I searched my email for “Your travel funds will be held under this flight’s confirmation number” using quotes and was able to find all of my cancellations that were not fully refunded.
I tried that but still didn’t find the email. I probably deleted it before. Thanks for your help.
Kudos once again Dan, for finding this for us. I’ve had to cancel a number of planned trips due to Covid and I had resigned myself to the loss. I just got off the phone with Southwest and they are having problems with the rollout it seems. The agent I spoke to had no idea that the plan existed, much less how it works. After about a half hour on hold, the agent still had no clue as to how to make it happen. I decided to call back later when I will get another, more knowledgeable agent or there has been a Dansdeals induced rapid learning curve.
Where is the official source of this news? I cannot find it
I also couldn’t find this in writing, but the agent I spoke to was familiar with the waiver. As mentioned above, she emphasized that the expiration had to be within 6 months (and originally thought my 12/10/21 expiration was too old). I also asked her how long SW would convert without a fee, and she confirmed the 12/31/22 date. She had to submit the request to a different department, so she put me on hold after identifying the funds. I received my LUV voucher about 4 hours later.
i have soon to be expiring travel funds, when i finally spoke to sw on the phone they said it would take 30 days to convert the funds into vouchers. this will be too late to get the 40% sale.
has anyone heard of this 30 day situation? is there a quicker way?
Did it end up taking 30 days? I am hoping not!
will this (on hold for 30+ min..) help to have LUV voucher extended (mine expire 7/21 .. would use for a 8/16 trip)
Thank you Mcdonoughdr!
I just tried this and it worked just as you mentioned. I contacted Southwest via Twitter direct message and explained that I have travel funds that I would like to use but are set to expire next month, prior to my November travel plans. I asked to have the travel funds converted into a Luv Voucher that I can use for travel in November and mentioned up front that I read that Southwest is currently waiving the fee to convert the travel funds to Luv Vouchers until December 2022. Along with this request I provided my full name, Confirmation#, Rapid Rewards #, Travel Funds Expiration Date, and travel funds balance.
The representative replied within the hour and stated that Southwest is indeed currently offering a temporary exception to convert travel funds in full to Southwest LUV Vouchers for a final six months of travel-by validity. It still takes about 30 days to process the voucher but the request was submitted.
I had travel funds with a July 1 expiration date. I made the request on June 2 and received the LUV voucher on June 28, so took 26 days to process mine. New expiration date is 12/16/22.
did any folks let TFs expire? if such, happen to get any alert or msg in the acct that the expy funds avail for extension? Thx
mine has about $90 to be expy later this wk, wonder if i should take my chance to let it expire then wait til sometime in Dec to ask for it?
Glad to see Flight Credits no longer expire effective 7/28/22
As per a phone rep, this has been discontinued since 10/1. They no longer offer any conversions of expired travel credits prior to 7/28, when travel credits stopped expiring.