Robin Talarzyk sent a message to Gary Kelly that said:
I have sent this to the Dallas Morning News, CBS News, and NBC News. It is also being passed around on social media for the public to see what Southwest Vacations is doing to it's customers during this pandemic.
Southwest now has it's own travel agency/department called Southwest Vacations and they are pushing for people to book their vacations through them, plus it also gives them a guarantee of booking a flight on Southwest with the vacation. Southwest Vacations has partners, as most booking companies do, like Vegas.com has one with Frontier Airlines. One of Southwest Vacations partners are MGM Resorts in Las Vegas. It was announced by MGM that as of March 17, all of their resorts and casinos would close because of the coronavirus. Our vacation was booked for March 24 through March 27, so this left us without vacation plans, at least the ones we had booked.
So, we called Southwest Vacations and after waiting on hold for over four hours, yes, FOUR HOURS, we were informed that we would get a refund for the hotel, but Southwest Vacations were only giving out vouchers for the flight.
This is outrageous and the public should know about this! We did not cancel our vacation or change our plans with Southwest Vacations. Our vacation was canceled through no fault of our own.
Not only were we informed we would not receive a full refund, for which we had already paid in full, but we were also informed we would have to use the voucher within one year or we would lose our money and Southwest would get to keep our money. This is like a scam! We made our vacation plans for Spring Break so we could bring our teenagers. We were also informed that the year began and ended on the date we made the reservations, not for the dates the vacation was to be used. So, since we made our reservations in February, we would have to use the voucher by February, which is not during Spring Break.
The President has declared a State of Emergency because of the virus, companies are changing their schedules to let parents work at home who have children who are in school because schools have closed; utility companies are not going to turn anything off due to non-payment because people are out of work whose companies have closed; everyone is working together through this difficult time; and Southwest Vacations will not give the people who booked their vacation through them a full refund.
We are middle class people who have to save to go on one vacation a year, and Southwest Vacations are keeping thousands of dollars by not refunding our money.
Maybe I could understand the voucher if I had booked through another travel agent or agency or booked the trip myself, but I booked through Southwest Vacations and paid them in full the time I made the reservation. Now, I should be refunded in full.
Southwest Vacations needs to do the right thing and give it's customers a full refund during this uncertain time of the coronavirus.
I chose your paper to email because this is where the Corporate Headquarters of Southwest are located and I am hoping they do not want the bad publicity in their hometown. I hope you can do something for all of us that are out thousands of dollars because Southwest Vacations is not giving full refunds for vacations that were canceled out of our control.
People are already posting on social media about this and Southwest is going to earn a bad reputation and people will stop booking vacations through them.
Thank you for your consideration with this matter and I hope, you, as a newspaper will let the people know.
Robin Talarzyk
Michael Talarzyk
robinh637@gmail.com
mtalarzyk@aol.com
