In a major change, Southwest announced today that flight credits issued from flight cancellations and changes will expire after 12 months.
Flight credits issued for tickets purchased on or after May 28, 2025 will expire one year or earlier from the date of ticketing, depending on the fare type purchased.
That’s a major change from the policy they created a few years back eliminating expiration dates from flight credits.
Many of us like to book low-cost Southwest flights to use up our American Express airline incidental credits (which have been anecdotally working to trigger the AmEx credit). We then cancel the flight and bank the Southwest flight credit. This scheme would still work, but the flight credit will have to be used up in 12 months (for tickets booked after May 28th).
This comes along with the change that Southwest cutting the points earnings on Wanna Get Away fares and also Southwest beginning to charge for checked bags.
Tomorrow they will announce that they are charging for water and snacks during flight.
I’ll tolerate these changes as long as my beloved companion pass stays.
I haven’t seen it mention yet but Southwest snuck in language about dynamic point redemptions in their email. “Phase 1: Beginning this month, we increased our Rapid Rewards earn ratio on our Business Select fares and lowered the earn ratio on our Wanna Get Away® and Wanna Get Away Plus™ fares. We will also begin to vary our redemption rates across our fare products on some high- and low-demand travel periods.“
I just gave up on them after 2022
It just got too weird onboard
What about flights credits that already exist that “don’t expire?”
Looks like those are still valid forever so try to save those and use the others first
confirmed: https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/article/policy-changes?clk=HC_Banner_Info_PolicyChanges
I have a flight credit that I received prior to May 28, 2025. Does it now expire?
No. Flight credits issued on or before May 27, 2025 do not expire. However, if you apply the flight credit toward a new reservation booked or changed on or after May 28, 2025, and later cancel the reservation, any flight credit or Transferable Flight CreditTM issued will have a specified expiration date.
Interesting though… “However, if you apply the flight credit toward a new reservation booked and ticketed or changed on or after May 28, 2025, and later cancel the reservation, any flight credit or Transferable Flight Credit™ issued will have a specified expiration date.” If you reuse that credit after that will most likely see it expire a year from when it was orig purchased. They don’t tell a timeframe for this!
So far booking with points should still be refundable??
Non disclosure agreement: you are hereby prohibited from discussing this post with Southwest employees or affiliated. Enough negative changes already!
If they were smarter, they’d release the bad news over time instead of in one fell swoop.
Cut the tail of the dog off a little bit at a time, or all at once?
They cut the tail and the hind legs
savage
Don’t see this in the comments, so I thought I would mention it — flight credits from what is now going to be called the Basic fare will expire after 6 months, not 12.
Purchase sub $100 flight. Cancel immediately, get money back, get credit anyways (not clawed back)
Amex has long memory and is known to reach back years when doing clawbacks. Do at your own risk.
Talk about a company putting itself into obsolescence. The absolute only reasons I fly with them are so I can choose my seat (I prefer boarding in the low B’s), have flexibility with the fare, and can redeem Chase points at a value of ~$0.014 per. The checked baggage fee alone I would’ve been okay with.
All of these negative-for-the-consumer changes will have me completely switching course, and I’m sure I’m not alone with this thought process.