I lost the cancellation email. Any chance of recovery without it?

May 3, 2024 1:28 PM

I booked a flight on Southwest. I cancelled the flight on Southwest. I edited by inbox a bit carelessly. I now cannot find either the booking or cancellation emails from Southwest. This means I don't have the magic code that references my cancelled reservation which would get my funds freed up for me to use on a new flight. Am I completely out of luck? Did I throw away money with my mouse? I think I know the answer.. but I'm asking out of an abundance of hope.
posted by hippybear to Travel & Transportation (30 answers total)

Response by poster: "I edited MY inbox a bit carelessly."
posted by hippybear at 1:31 PM on May 3

I find Southwest's phone support to be pretty nice. I would just give them a call and see what happens.
posted by gregr at 1:36 PM on May 3 [16 favorites]

What email provider are you using? I might have missed that in your message but if it's, say,, Gmail you should in theory be able to find most things with a careful search. It seems like maybe the message(s) are misfiled somewhere from your wording and not just deleted?

Alternatively do you have an account with Southwest which would have reservation history?
posted by Alensin at 1:55 PM on May 3

Response by poster: I do not have an account with Southwest.

I have not gone directly to my Gmail account and looked through things there. I deleted it from my Mail on my Macintosh, and have looked through that quite thoroughly and there is no trace of it there. Does deleting something locally delete it from the online version of the account? I had assumed it does...
posted by hippybear at 1:58 PM on May 3

Gmail is generally reluctant to delete things. They move to trash or archive folders or do other magic behind the scenes. I would log in on the web and see what you can find there, you might be surprised.
posted by Alensin at 2:01 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I'm... finding the entire structure of my Mail reflected in this Gmail that I'm looking at, and there is nothing here to indicate I can find anything that I might have deleted. If you have magical advice, please share it, but right now, this is exactly the same as browsing my local Mail, only it's in a browser window.
posted by hippybear at 2:06 PM on May 3

Usually you just need the confirmation code to access the funds. Check your credit card statement (or website) – often the confirmation code is part of the itemized details.
posted by dum spiro spero at 2:09 PM on May 3 [5 favorites]

Sometimes the line in my credit card has the airline confirmation code in it. It might not get you anything on their website since it’s cancelled, but could be a start, especially since you don’t have a southwest account.
posted by sillysally at 2:09 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

I also believe this will be resolved with a simple phone call with Southwest. Have you called Southwest?
posted by phunniemee at 2:10 PM on May 3 [18 favorites]

How did you book and cancel this flight with Southwest? Through their website? Seems like they should have some record of your payment info including your name and credit card number. I'd think they'd be able to look you up that way if you contacted their customer service.
posted by Reverend John at 2:22 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Most email systems (specifically google and Mac) when you delete something it goes into the trash for 30 days unless you deliberately tell the mail app to empty the trash. If it is in the trash, it won't turn up on a normal search but you either open your trash folder and visually search or, for google start the search with in:trash, for example search on in:trash southwest
posted by metahawk at 2:31 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Oh, you're sweet for assuming I might have deleted this within the past 30 days. I've had something close to 100,000 messages in my Inbox for a while and have been doing a lot of editing to get it down to something my computer is happier to deal with. At some point I obviously did a delete sweep that included the email I'm looking for. I have no idea when this might have been but rest assured, your "it might be in your trash" solution is one of the first I looked at.

My Time Machine drive just outright failed a few weeks ago, so I lost several years' worth of incremental backups that would have saved me here. I have an infrequently used iPad and infrequently used MacBook that I turned to, thinking maybe there were old images of Mail on those machines that would contain what I'm looking for. The old iPad decided that it maybe is now just a clock, and the MacBook never got Mail set up on it so it never downloaded an image of my Inbox at any point.

I looked at my iPod Touch, which also didn't have Mail ever set up on it.

I have during this process determined which date I am most likely to have purchased the ticket upon, and also the date upon which I am most likely to have cancelled the flight.

I need to get my anxiety filled self up to speed for calling Southwest Customer Service, because a great deal of this phone call will be convincing someone to care enough to research a thing which they explicitly tell you NOT TO LOSE.

If anyone here has a success story to share about making such a phone call and getting your flight dollars restored, I'd really truly welcome that.
posted by hippybear at 3:10 PM on May 3

People lose this stuff all the time. They'll almost certainly help you find your voucher and give you no guff over it. I do have such a success story (basically same thing happened).
posted by aubilenon at 3:18 PM on May 3 [15 favorites]

Absolutely call them. People are more incompetent than you can possibly imagine - they won't bat at eye at helping with this.
posted by superfluousm at 3:26 PM on May 3 [8 favorites]

I often look in the "all mail", not just the trash folder. I've had success finding items that were not in the trash file...
posted by Czjewel at 3:41 PM on May 3

Southwest is not going to punish you for losing your cancellation code.

They tell you to keep the code because it uniquely identifies that transaction, which will make it easier to find. It's not like it's impossible to locate the transaction without the code, though. They can pull up your history using your name or phone number or e-mail address.
posted by kindall at 3:58 PM on May 3 [12 favorites]

It's their job not to lose track of your money!!! Of course you should call them.
posted by praemunire at 3:58 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Does SouthWest have an app? If you log into the app with the same email address, might it be possible to find your purchase/cancellation history?
posted by essexjan at 3:58 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

If it helps what you really want is the eTicket number. I am 99% sure you can convince them to look that up with the name of the passenger, credit card number, and the date of the initial charge. The six-character confirmation code is a helpful pointer to the eTicket. The only way you can lose the funds is no-showing, and sometimes not even then. (Well, they can expire, but that's not likely these days.)
posted by wnissen at 3:58 PM on May 3

because a great deal of this phone call will be convincing someone to care enough to research a thing which they explicitly tell you NOT TO LOSE.

No, that's not what a great deal of the phone call will consist of. Your reservation still exists in the Southwest system and is findable by multiple ways. The fact that you lost the code does not mean that the reservation itself is lost. It may take a little extra time for them to find your reservation, but you will not actually have to convince anyone that they need to care enough to do it in the first place.
posted by paper scissors sock at 4:09 PM on May 3 [10 favorites]

You are not the first to lose the code nor will you be the last. There are still passengers who book by phone and use paper ticket. Southwest can find your order. It’s going to be okay. Just call.
posted by kimberussell at 5:35 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Same issue, 2017, solved with a phone call.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:35 PM on May 3 [3 favorites]

I think you should probably call the airline.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:58 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

>> No, that's not what a great deal of the phone call will consist of.

Quoted for truth. The person you talk to does not get paid enough to care enough to judge you. The vast majority of the people who have answered your question believe that a phone call is the path to the solution to your problem, and many of us speak from experience. Just call them up, act friendly, act like a human and treat them similarly, and it’ll work out.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 6:29 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

I've screwed up southwest tickets many times over the years. Just call them.
posted by lkc at 7:11 PM on May 3

Nthing the call them idea. Also remember you want to work _together_ to solve a problem. So, when they ask "what can I do for you today?" the reply is "well, I hope you can help me. I have a problem. I and I hope you and I can figure out how to
posted by TimHare at 7:47 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Check your calendar on the date you were supposed to fly. If the flight details auto-generated from SW, the confirmation number might be in the details
posted by jennstra at 7:47 PM on May 3

If you have some sort of anxiety with regards to talking to someone over the phone, try the chat app. You'll likely talk with a bot first, which is almost certainly going to be useless (but only almost certainly), but then it will punt you to a human.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:03 PM on May 3 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Alright! Well, I got over my anxiety and called and they got it all squared away for me. And I had to call back to get the reservation squared away, but they did it all at the costs I was seeing online and it was friendly and great.

So, here's the thing for anyone reading this in the future: JUST CALL SOUTHWEST. They are nice people and they will help you do things.

Thanks for everyone who encouraged me here.
posted by hippybear at 8:37 PM on May 3 [39 favorites]

There's a reason their stock ticker is LUV
posted by kindall at 2:08 PM on May 7