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Southwest Airlines… Not The White Hat Wearing Company You Thought
Posted on September 24th, 2010 No commentsBe careful, Southwest is not as HONEST as they would have you believe.
First, I fly a fair bit… Southwest most of the time, but also US Air and Continental.
Recently I had booked several trips on Southwest, a couple for me, and one for my wife and I both… No big deal. But before I booked the flights, I was watching the Southwest flight prices. I was not in a big hurry to book the trips, all of them were 2-4 months out, so I was just checking prices every now-and-then…
Anyway, I saw all the trips I was watching take a $10 – $15 price increase per leg… So figured I better get these booked. So I did, I booked 6 trips, or legs at whatever the going price was that day.
My Mistake… I have always trusted Southwest. I fly them quite a bit, they work for me, and they have always been good to me. I just trusted them. Well…
Another trip came up, and Southwest was the most obvious choice. So I went to Southwest.com and plugged in my dates and stuff, and the trip came back cheaper than the very same trip I had booked earlier, although the actual trip that I had booked was further out.
So, for shits-and-grins, I plugged in one of the other trip dates that I already had booked… And low-and-behold, the damn thing was $26 less per leg now. So, needless say, I was a little PO’d… I just always thought the ‘Lowest Fare’ was the ‘Lowest Fare’ at the time that you booked it on Southwest… I just trusted them.
Well, I called Southwest… And a really nice lady walked me through how to re-book the same flight at the reduce cost and all that. And she explained to me that you do need to keep an eye on the flight prices, even at Southwest, because you may not be paying the lowest fare all the time.
So I went through all the flights I had already booked, and re-booked about 5 of the 6 legs at cheaper prices… Picked up about $142 in savings.
Now – Here’s where they really get sneaky…
YOU don’t get that money back! NOPE…
It basically goes into a little Southwest bank account, tied to your confirmation numbers for each of those flights. You lose it if you don’t use it, and they do absolutely nothing to tell you or remind you that you have funds available to use, and you MUST use the refunded amount for -and- on a trip booked in the exact same person’s name.
After I had gone through this whole process and re-booked all these trips… One would think you’d be able to log into your Southwest account, and somewhere there would be a place that would say… Your Southwest Credit Balance Is: $XXX.XX
NOPE, NADA, NOWHERE… As a matter of fact, they make it all most impossible for you even find out how much you have, or how to use it.
Again, I called Southwest and asked… Where can I find my credit balance in my account??? Shouldn’t I be able to see it in my account??
NOPE… And this customer service lady was firmly convinced that what they (Southwest) were doing was the best way to do it – Ah… Yeah, for Southwest, damn sure not their customers.
Well, with all that said, I will still fly Southwest, but I have now thrown them in the pile with all the other scum bags airlines… And I know now you CANNOT trust them either.
It’s ashame too… ‘cause I really thought they held themselves to a higher standard.
Oh well…
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Tribute To Jim Rohn: Death of a Legend
Posted on December 10th, 2009 4 commentsHave You Ever Lied To A Girl Scout?
I love this simple story.
Jim Rohn… You will be missed.
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just want to say… Thank You!
Posted on November 11th, 2009 1 commentI just got an email with a wonderful story from my good friend and business partner Michael Angier, and I just had to pass it along. If it offends you, scroll to the bottom of this email and remove yourself from our list… Simple enough.
Here in the United States, on this eleventh day of the eleventh month, we honor those who serve and have served in the Armed Forces. They have given much, so that we are free to live the lives we choose.
I have lived and traveled all over the World, and I’m *extremely* proud to call the United States of America home.
Quick story, before the story…
Several years ago, I had been traveling a lot throughout Asia for five to six weeks at a time, and when I returned home I came back to the States through Newark airport as I had done many times… But this time was a little different.
I was coming through immigrations, or whatever that areas is called where they check your passport and all that… I was a bit tired, I’d been traveling for 23+ hours, and every time I go through immigrations I always think to myself, I hope I haven’t done anything wrong. You know the feeling… There are a lot guys walking around with guns and dogs.
Anyway, I get to the counter and the old guy behind the glass takes my passport, flips through it and can see I’ve been traveling a lot, and that I’ve been out of the country awhile, then…
He flips to a page, hits it with a stamp and looks up at me and utters these three words…
“Welcome Home Son”
The moment he said that, I felt *so* proud, and I really didn’t know why…
See, I’ve never served in the military, so I can *only* imagine how those three words must feel to our returning men and women serving around world.
My father served during the Korean War, my uncle served in WWII, my grandfather served during WWI, and I grew up going to school with Air Force kids during the Vietnam era, back when we all wore MIA and POW bracelets in honor of those soldiers missing and fallen.
So on this Veterans Day, I want to say Thank You… to my father, my uncle, my grandfather, and to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in our military. Thank you for the freedom you have given all of us. I support you, and will never let you down.
If you appreciate the freedoms YOU have, thank a Veteran.
And now, for the story that Michael sent to me…
Back in September 2005, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock AK, did something memorable.
On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks from her classroom.
When the first period kids entered the room, they discovered that there were no desks. “Ms. Cothren, where are our desks?”
She replied, “You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.”
They thought, “Well, maybe it’s our grades.”
“No,” she said.
“Maybe it’s our behavior.”
She told them, “No, it’s not even your behavior.”
And so, they came and went: the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.
By early afternoon, television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren’s classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.
The final period of the day came, and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, “Throughout the day, no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.”
At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.
Twenty-seven U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk.
The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand along the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place, those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.
Martha said, “You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it’s up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don’t ever forget it.”
Please consider passing this along so others won’t forget that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by our Veterans.
All the best,
Allyn Cutts