Ants on the Melon
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I had never flown with Southwest Airlines until I moved to Texas four years ago, but these days they are my airline of choice. I’ve had so many great experiences with them that at this point that I’d easily forgive a bad experience, but that hasn’t happened yet. But tonight they topped everything so far, all by empowering the people on the front lines to do what is best for their customers.

It all started when I logged into southwest.com tonight to purchase a ticket to Las Vegas. After completing my purchase I noticed a sidebar on my account page telling me that I had 8 credits, and that I needed to accrue 8 more by August of next year to receive my Rapid Rewards free ticket. Sandy and I just flew via Southwest to Harlingen last weekend, so I figured I could claim those 2 flights as well. When I entered my confirmation number it went through just fine, but when I entered Sandy’s it told me that I couldn’t redeem a credit for that flight since my name wasn’t on the ticket (even though I paid for it). This was mildly annoying, but I’ve always had good luck calling Southwest’s customer support, so I thought I would give that a try.

I spoke with a nice woman named Cheryle, who told me that although I was the purchaser of the ticket, it wouldn’t be possible for me to claim the rewards credits for it. Never one to be discouraged, I began telling her how much I loved Southwest and that I really wanted to get enough credits by next August so I could claim my free ticket. Cheryle told me that she loved Southwest too, and that she loved her job, and then said “well, let me see what I can do.”

Although I didn’t know what she was doing at first, Cheryle began searching the Southwest ticket database for every ticket ever belonging to “Cory Wright”, and adding the credits for those flights to my account. This took her about 10 minutes, and when she was done not only did I have enough credits for a free ticket, but I had enough for two free tickets! I went from having 8 credits to 33 credits, all with flights that I hadn’t claimed! (before I knew about Rapid Rewards)

Needless to say, I was thrilled. When Cheryle asked if there was anything else she could do, I asked to speak to her supervisor so I could give her the credit she deserved.

I love Southwest Airlines, and as long as they continue to give people like Cheryle the ability to make their customers happy, I am certain they’ll be my airline of choice for a long time.