Man turns to 7OYS after getting denied refund from Southwest for canceled flight

Thursday, April 16, 2015

7OYS helps man get refund Southwest after canceling flight

7OYS helped a man, who was denied a refund by Southwest Airlines after cancelling a flight, get his money back.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A Southwest Airlines passenger hoping to get a refund for a flight he cancelled ran into quite a bit of turbulence.

He contacted 7 On Your Side's Michael Finney to smooth things over.

A San Jose man says he and his family are frequent flyers on Southwest and what happened to him caught him by surprise.

Jeff Schwartz was all set to take off on Southwest to celebrate his friend's birthday, but his buddy had to postpone the celebration. Schwartz grabbed a phone at an office he was visiting and cancelled the flight, or so he thought.

"They told me, 'Great, all set,'" Schwartz said. "I hung up and went back to my meeting. I didn't think about it again."

The next day he received an email from Southwest that read, "Because the passenger listed below failed to cancel, all funds from the no show reservation are forfeited."

Stunned, he called Southwest. Schwartz appealed to Southwest management but his refund was again rejected. He didn't know what he could do.

Schwartz was at an offsite meeting when he picked up the phone to cancel his flight. Tracking down that call on that's company phone records would be nearly impossible.

"In a lot of ways I felt like I had done what I was supposed to do. I called and cancelled. I had talked to a rep and I didn't feel like I needed to put other people out to solve that problem," he said.

Schwartz appealed to Southwest management but his refund was again rejected. He posted his frustrations on Twitter, but was told the same thing.

Without proof that he called, there could be no refund.

He then turned to 7 On Your Side.

"And at 8 a.m. on a Thursday I had a phone call from Southwest saying my money had been refunded already. So, thanks very much for that. That was very helpful," he said.

Southwest said "exceptions are considered on a case-by-case basis and may require related documentation. Our records indicate that our customer relations department worked with Mr. Schwartz to resolve this particular issue."

"Clearly you guys carry a lot of weight with Southwest. So that was great," Schwartz said.

When cancelling a reservation, document it by getting a cancellation number, or at least logging the name of the person you talked to and the time of call.