One woman has issued a warning to all who fly Southwest Airlines: Do not use Apple Pay to book your flight.
In a viral video with over 39,000 views, TikToker Hanna Anderson (@hann.anders) urged the use of other payment methods to make bookings with the airline to avoid having their money in limbo, which happened to her when making a $400-plus purchase.
@hann.anders @Southwest Airlines please fix this feature or take the apple pay option away from your website because this isnt right… im just trying to save someone else from going through this trouble & fingers crossed that I get my money back 🤞🏼⚠️ #psa #southwestairlines #applepay ♬ original sound – Hᴀɴɴᴀ Aɴᴅᴇʀsᴏɴ 🦋
“Okay huge PSA if you’re booking a plane ticket through Southwest Airlines,” her video began.
Though Anderson says she never had problems with bookings before, despite using the airline for just about all of her life, that all changed when she booked a ticket to Nashville to visit some friends. At checkout, she explained she was given three payment options: pay now with a debit or credit card, book now pay later or use Apple Pay.
“So I press Apple Pay and the website says processing and loading,” she continued. “And then after a couple seconds it says like transaction could not be processed.”
Yet, moments later she received a charge to her account for the amount of the ticket. After contacting her bank, she was told there was nothing she could do other than speak to the airline. That’s when she is told that the payment service was not compatible with Southwest’s website and she began to get the run around.
“’You’ll need to contact Apple Pay because they need to release the funds,’” the TikToker recounted someone saying.
Apple, however, blamed the bank for the processing issue and instructed her to contact them to dispute the charge. The problem was that the charge’s “pending” status with the bank made it difficult to dispute.
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” she asked the company.
Yet again, she was instructed to contact Southwest Airline to settle the issue and was given another excuse. Apparently, her reservation was never confirmed even though the money was missing from her account, so she would still need to book a new flight and wait seven days for a refund.
“So if you are booking through Southwest, do not use Apple Pay because their website is not compatible,” she finally concluded.
She also advised the airline company to step in and fix the problem.
The Daily Dot contacted Apple Pay and Southwest Airlines for comment via email. We also reached out to Hanna via TikTok comment for more information. There’s been various accusations on a forum for Southwest Airlines, where customers claim a mishandling of funds when using Apple Pay. Many of the advertised benefits of Apple Pay include not having to deal with a physical card and a more seamless checkout experience.
In the comments section, other customers claimed that they fell into the same booking trap.
“Same, does anyone at all have a solution past this point?” one user wrote. “Have called between the two parties so many times and no progress.”
“I’ve had issues with Apple Pay,” another user said. “It ended up being a bunch of finger pointing that never got solved. Vendor bank and apple carousel of bs.”
