<br><div><aside class="gnt_em gnt_em__fp gnt_em_vp__tp gnt_em__el" aria-label="Video - International travel: Negative COVID-19 test required unless you got vaccine"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Shelly McClaskey and her family planned to spend Christmas in Los Angeles with family but canceled their flights a few weeks before the trip due to <a target="_blank" href="/story/news/health/2020/11/16/covid-19-california-more-business-close-newsom-orders-emergency-shutdowns/6313336002/" rel="noopener" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" class="gnt_ar_b_a">COVID-19 shutdowns</a><a target="_blank" href="/story/news/nation/2020/11/16/newsom-orders-emergency-shutdowns-airbnb-go-public/6315379002/" rel="noopener" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" class="gnt_ar_b_a">in southern California.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The insurance company executive wasn't eligible for a <a target="_blank" href="/story/travel/airline-news/2020/05/12/coronavirus-travel-airlines-warned-complying-refund-rule/3114697001/" rel="noopener" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" class="gnt_ar_b_a">refund </a>and happily accepted $878 in Southwest Airlines credit because the suburban Chicago family travels three or four times a year and goes out of its way to fly Southwest.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">She didn't think about the money again until a couple weeks ago when she tried to book three tickets from Chicago to Baltimore for a late-June trip to her teenage son's lacrosse tournament in Delaware.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Southwest's website flashed an error: the travel credits couldn't be used because they expire before the end of the planned trip.</p><aside aria-label="advertisement" class="gnt_m gnt_x gnt_x__lbl gnt_x__al"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">McClaskey dug up the email from her canceled flight and saw that the expiration date for her Southwest "travel funds" is June 2. That's a year after she bought the tickets for the California Christmas trip. A year is the standard deadline for rebooking and, in Southwest's case, completing a trip using credits. But Southwest and other airlines extended expiration dates when <a target="_blank" href="/story/travel/2020/03/10/travel-industry-reeling-coronavirus-concerns-anxiety/5000655002/" rel="noopener" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" class="gnt_ar_b_a">travel ground to a halt</a> a year ago due to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.usatoday.com/news/coronavirus/" rel="noopener" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" class="gnt_ar_b_a">coronavirus pandemic</a>.</p><aside aria-label="advertisement" class="gnt_m gnt_x gnt_x__lbl gnt_x__al"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">McClaskey figured she was covered by Southwest's more generous COVID-19 policy, which broadly extended credit expiration dates to September 2022. But that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.swamedia.com/releases/release-1cddf1aa880580a9784fc1277348f98f-southwest-airlines-customer-update" rel="noopener" data-t-l="|inline|intext|n/a" class="gnt_ar_b_a">policy </a>covered travel funds that expired or were issued between March 1 and Sept. 7, 2020. Her credits weren't issued until Nov....</p></div> <style> .wrapper { text-align: center; } </style> <div class="wrapper"> <a class="button" href ="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2021/03/08/flight-credit-covid-pandemic-canceled-flight-southwest-american-united/6904547002/">Read more <span>➤</span></a> </div>
