Not-so-Early Bird — Southwest Airline’s email receipts suck

So we purchased our tickets back in September with Southwest for flying back to California for the holidays.  Southwest changed in the last year or so from a purely “first check-in, first on” with ticket queues, to the ability to buy “Early Bird” seating for an extra $10 — the Early Birders being auto-checked-in first at 24 hours ahead of the flight.

That was three months ago, and when the day of checking in approached, we knew we’d done something with purchasing Early Bird check-in for our travel.  But was it for both going and returning, or for just one leg, and, if so, which leg?

Margie looked at the email receipt, and … well … it looked like we’d purchased it, but it didn’t say if it was for both legs or one leg (and then for which one).  But Margie recalled hearing that purchases of Early Bird status were for both ways, and it would have made sense for us to book it on the flight out because the night before the trip would be Zany Packing Mania Time …

Long about half an hour ago, I asked Margie if she’d checked her mail to see if she’d gotten notification of our flight. She hadn’t.  She went online, walked through the check-in, and … we were in the mid-Bs.

WTH?

So there were 70-odd other folks who also had Early Bird who had managed to get in before us?  Or …?

Margie called Southwest. And got … a not very helpful lady as her Customer Service Representative.  And after about half an hour of very reasoned discussion from Margie’s side, here’s the conclusion:

1. It turns out that, on the email receipt, there is in fact, in small gray lettering, something that says the Early Bird is $10 per person per leg.  So it was, actually, purchased just for one leg.  Apparently for the leg coming back (which also makes a certain amount of sense, too).
2. But the email receipt doesn’t, in fact, say which leg the EB was purchased for.  Neither does going online and looking at the reservation.  Apparently (Margie was told) the screen that popped up at the purchase did, in fact, specify it.  But that was 3 months ago, and she didn’t print it out (since, of course, an email receipt was coming).
3. Apparently the Southwest CSRs can’t actually tell which leg you booked it on, either.  All she could saw was that the number was the number.

So there are two problems going on here:

1. Southwest’s email receipts and online review of reservations suck. If you can’t actually identify what you purchased, it’s not a very good receipt.
2. The Southwest CSR’s focus was not on making the customer happy (or at least expressing sympathy toward the customer’s plight), but in explaining how it was not Southwest’s fault but actually Margie’s for not remembering what was on the screen three months ago.

The Early Bird functionality is a convenience for folks who, for whatever reason, can’t reliably be at a keyboard exactly 24 hours before their flight.  On the other hand, it’s another crack in the facade of brutal fairness that is the Southwest boarding model’s great strength — that everyone has the same shot at getting where they want to go.  (It’s minor compared to the other recent Southwest innovation of letting you pay extra for premium seating, which is reserved at the very, very front of the line; that smacks too much of money-enabled queue jumping.)

Margie did get a number to call to discuss further Southwest’s inadequate email and online receipt processes.  Of course, they’re only open during normal business hours.

Harrumph.

Generally, I’ve liked Southwest.  While the boarding process does have something of a cattle car aspect to it, it’s also fair and clear (and there’s never any concern that someone whose seat row hasn’t been called yet is queueing up and getting boarded ahead of you). The flight crews tend to be friendly as well.

But their CSRs (and their system designers) need a bit of remedial training.

(As an amusing side note, do a Google Search on “customer service representative“. You have never seen such a group of smiling, young, smiling, vibrant, smiling, stock footage people with phone headsets on. They do not look like the picture above (where I appended the word “bad” to that search string.)

Oh, well.  On the bright side, tomorrow we fly.  And mid-Bs isn’t horrific (and, given it’s a few hours after the 24 hour trigger, it probably means the fight will not be too terribly full).