We fly a lot of Southwest, thanks to having two Southwest Companion Passes (ie, our kids "fly free", which makes family travel a lot more affordable!) When Southwest rolled out their program overhaul in May 2025, one of the biggest changes they made was the expiration time frame for vouchers and credits.
"Basic" fare, is Southwest's lowest tier fare option. It doesn't offer seat selection and it doesn't offer full refunds. However, maybe you're like me and because you hold a Southwest Credit card, you get free checked bags and maybe even seat selection, and when Basic Fare flights with points; you still have the option to cancel a Basic Fare flight and get all of your points back.
BUT, if you book a Basic Fare flight paying cash, if you need to cancel, you won't get a cash refund, you'll get a Southwest Credit - valid for only six months. Keep reading to learn how to turn that six month credit into a no expiration credit!
Similarly, if you experience Southwest delays/issues, you may be issued a LUV Voucher, which is valid for 12 months (travel must be completed before the expiration date). We have received over $800 in LUV Vouchers in the past six months! So this definitely happens (and here's how you can request a voucher too!)
In order to use Flight Credits and/or LUV Vouchers, it's important to know that when booking a flight, "each passenger can use a total of three forms of payment per booking, and each flight credit counts as one form a payment".
The process I'm about to outline for you, not only will extend your credit's "shelf life" it also essentially allows you to combine multiple flight credits into one credit (even in your credits are non-transferable!), so that you can use all at once as one form of payment and perhaps pay the remains with cash/credit card.
In any instance - the jist is, if you have a Southwest Credit or Voucher that's going to expiring before you can use it; there’s a way to extend. Read on!
How to Extend Expiring Southwest Credits
You can "beat" Southwest at their own game by following this hack to “convert” expiring travel funds to non-expiring and transferable travel funds.
Is it a bit complicated? Yes. Does it work? Also yes.
Keep in mind - you can locate flight credits in your Southwest Account. On a web browser, you do this by logging > My Account > Scroll down to My Flight Credits:
However, LUV Vouchers typically are issued via email (and in my opinion are harder to keep track of! If//when I use a LUV voucher, I usually do a reply email to myself from the original issuance email, and I tell myself what date I used the voucher, what flight I used it for, and my confirmation number. This way, if I *think* I have a voucher to use, I can do a quick inbox search).
You can use
this link to check the balance on Flight Credits and LUV Vouchers (as long as you know the confirmation code and/or voucher number.
How-To:
1. Find any one-way Choice Preferred tier flight that the cash price costs slightly more than your travel credit. The NEEDS to cost more than your travel credit value, not less. Ideally up to $20 more (you will need to spend the delta amount in cash, so the closer to your travel credit amount the better). This flight needs to be for a date that is before your travel credit expires.
You can do this by using the low fare calendar and filtering search for Choice Preferred. From the main search page, select "Search with low fare calendar" (note this option doesn't appear in App and needs to be done from a web browser)
After you click search, at the left, on the Fare type, select "Choice Preferred" from the drop down:
Example: Lets say you have a $90 travel fund expiring February 2027. You need to look for a choice preferred flight before February 2027 that costs at least $90. Using the low fare calendar, I found a $94 option in October 2026.
2. Purchase a Southwest giftcard to cover the cost of that flight minus the travel credit amount.
This is why, you want to find a flight priced as close to your flight credit amount, but slightly higher. You technically could find any flight that costs more than your credit value, but then you'd be tying up a lot of extra money in Southwest credits.
The best place I’ve found for instant digital giftcards is DoorDash. Not only can you do any custom amount, but if you have a dash pass (benefit from tons of Chase cards), you also get 10% off gift cards!
Example: We found that $94 flight above and have a $90 travel fund; so you’re going to purchase a digital Southwest gift card, for at least $4 (in this case, the minimum amount is $25 though; so I'd buy a $25 giftcard, which means I'm tying up more money in Southwest credits)
3. Go to Southwest and put the cash Choice Preferred flight you found earlier, that costs the same as your travel fund + SW gift card, in your cart.
For our example: this would be the $94 choice preferred flight on 10/14/2026 that we found above.
4. At check you, use your expiring travel fund plus the newly purchased SW gift card, as your form of payment.
5. Pretty much immediately after purchase, you can cancel the flight and you’ll receive a non-expiring/one-time transferable travel credit, for the total amount that you paid!
From our example: this would a $94 non-expiring, one-time transferable credit. (The original $90 travel credit plus the $4 used from the $25 Southwest Giftcard)
Keep in Mind
- You technically have to put more money into this by purchasing the gift card, in order for this to work. That’s why I would look for a choice preferred flight priced as close to, but over the value, of your travel credit
- The flight you book MUST be choice preferred (or higher) tier flight for this to work, based on the different refund policies for each fare benefits
- You can also use this technique to combine multiple individual travel credits into one. For example, when my family of four each get our own LUV voucher, because Southwest limits you to three forms of payment per ticket purchase, I can’t use all four vouchers to purchase one flight… BUT if I used two or three vouchers to purchase base one flight, then canceled, I would have effectively “combined” those vouchers into one!
- Since the method above yields a one-time transferable credit, if you transfer the credit to someone else, when they go to use it, they HAVE to use it to pay for a flight for themselves. The passenger name has to match the name transferred to.
I found this out the hard way. I went through all of the steps above, and effectively moved a transfer credit to my P2’s account. My plan had been to combine it with a flight credit he had to purchase a ticket for me (on his account). Nope, didn’t work because I wasn’t booking a flight for him with his name on the transferred credit…. So I got it repeat the process all over again to transfer the credits back to me to book a flight in my name. But in the end, I was able to combine and utilize two flight credits that were expiring to book a flight for free (no points needed); which was worth it.
Summary
You never know what you don't know. This little trick is a great way to "extend" the useful life of those pesky credits. I know we've had more than one credit expire in the past and now I'm kicking myself that I didn't know this sooner. If this post doesn't help you right now, I hope it will in the future!
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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.
Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!
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