![]() Unfortunately, since I paid my taxes with a Southwest gift card, I didn’t have a choice. Obviously, you will want to select the former if at all possible. Depending on a flight, you will be given an option of refund of your taxes or having that amount held in a travel fund. You will need to log in to your account, find the reservation and cancel it. If you are not sure when you will be using the funds and just need to cancel the flights for now, the process is a bit different. I would not take the time to check if the flight date is within 4 weeks.” Also, as the flight date gets closer, prices tend to rise, so it becomes very unlikely that you will get a lower one. So my practice is not to check companion fares frequently, but only when I learn of a fare sale, to increase the probability that the process will be worth doing. This has never happened to me, and it seems quite unlikely, but it theoretically could happen.Ĭomment: You can see that this takes some time. Note: this means that there is a possibility that the flight is now sold out, and you will not be able to rebook the companion. Remember to use the refund to pay the taxes, so that you do not have to track it. (You may have to wait 5-10 minutes before the system allows the new companion booking.) If it is significantly lower than the one you paid, cancel the companion booking, then go through the change process Leana describes above, then add the companion. This will show the current price, or price in points. You can compare by starting a new booking for the flight you want, and getting yourself to the purchase page. You have diligently kept a record of the price you paid, and updated it each time you rebooked, right? First, compare the price, or price in points that you paid to the current, hopefully sale price. If you have a companion pass, and your companion is on the flight, the system will not allow a change until you first cancel the companion flight. “About checking for lower prices & rebooking with a companion flight: My reader Weedibix added the following helpful tip if you booked while using a Companion Pass: The default is to use the travel funds from your original booking, so you don’t have to input anything. When you get to the screen to review your changes, you can see the price of your old ticket compared to your new ticket and the amount of points that will be refunded. You can book the same exact flight at the lower price with an automatic points refund/adjustment. Here is how you can access your reservation: ![]() Update! Southwest has changed the terms and now, if you change the reservation, it will become non-refundable. You can just hit the “change” button, and it will give you the option to search for a new flight. If you are rebooking flights at the lower price, you don’t have to cancel them first. In response, reader TheGazelle pointed out this definition on page 16 of CSP benefits guide: “A Covered Trip is a period of round-trip travel that doesn’t exceed three hundred and sixty- five (365) days away from your residence to a destination other than your city of residence.” But as a general rule, Avios (British Airways program) and Southwest award tickets should always be booked as one-ways. Update: My reader KKnur has mentioned that roundtrip requirement is not listed in the benefits guide. Also, if you are relying on travel protection via cards like Chase Sapphire Preferred, you are required to have a roundtrip ticket in order for your benefits to kick in. That’s because you will have to pay it twice if you book one-ways. That really goes for many award redemptions, except those that have high cancellation penalty. ![]() It makes it much easier to cancel or rebook. This is why it’s better to book Southwest flights as one-ways rather than roundtrip. As a result, I saved close to 8,000 points total for only 15 minutes of work. I found it for only 2,660 points per person. While the outbound flight went up in price, the flight from Jamaica to Orlando got cheaper. And I definitely didn’t think I would find a good deal just few weeks before the trip. March is a high season in Caribbean, so I pretty much gave up. After all, you can rebook with no penalty. Well, being the OCD person that I am, over the last few months I kept diligently checking my Southwest flights to see if a cheaper price would pop up. Of course, since then my reader Audrey has pointed out that Jet Blue might have been a better choice, and I agreed. Even though international taxes to Caribbean islands are crazy high, paying just 4,600 Rapid Rewards points one-way is dirt cheap. When I booked my Southwest flight to Jamaica last year, I thought I was getting a fantastic deal.
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