Southwest Overbooked COVID
Are airlines seeing so much demand that they now have to rebook passengers from overbooked flights? Well, that may be happening with Southwest. Friend of the site and occasional contributor R.D. Sussmann-Dewberry shared his recent experience with me and I thought it was worth passing along.
Here is what R.D. had to say:
Yesterday I was called and offered $300.00 in LUV bucks or 18,000 Rapid Rewards points for my travel next week to Atlanta The connecting flight on the trip had reached COVID capacity – and they were asking for volunteers to rebook onto other routings where the planes have not reached COVID capacity (67% Load Factor).
If this is any indicator, the air travel recovery is well underway. Within this it also shows that Southwest is keeping an eye on their customers and their space requirements for people traveling.
From the agent whom I talked to: Southwest will ask for volunteers starting a week out on connecting leg itineraries to balance out their passenger loads. Non-stop or direct (no change of plane) itineraries will be less eligible for this (unseen) benefit.
In my case, I’m arriving 45 minutes later on the same date, and holding 300.00 for future travel.
Are They Truly Overbooked?
As R.D. points out, Southwest isn’t quite running their planes at full capacity right now so overbooked doesn’t quite mean what it used to. We also know they have a ton of planes parked as well, so perhaps demand has started to surge a bit and they need to get more flights on their schedule.
This is really an unprecedented time for the airlines and I would expect they deal with many scheduling and logistical challenges daily on top of what was already a very complicated process. It’s great they are paying a voucher to customers, although I can imagine that will get expensive quickly. Either way I thought it was worth sharing this story and gathering other data points.
Has Southwest offered you a voucher for an upcoming “overbooked” flight? Let us know below!
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I will take the points tho. 18,000 Rapid Rewards points have the same purchase power as $300 voucher and points expiration can be extended easily and don’t attach to a specific passenger when I want to use it in the future 🙂
For a June 6 departure, I was called the day before a flight (Sacramento-Orlando), and offered $400 Southwest credit/passenger to leave the next day.
I received this excellent offer for all 4 of my tickets on the flight! I have to wake up at 4am for the new flight but $1200 in LUV bucks is worth it.
I can confirm yes. Got $100 per traveler for changing to an earlier flight. The rep called 3 days in advance of the flight happening. They are guaranteeing no passe gets will be required to sit in middle seat so it’s “overbooked” if over 66% capacity.
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