I don’t understand how they can say the issue is out of their control. They choose the weather software and could have redundancies in place? If a plane has a fault, then they’d have to put you up for the night.
Someone at Southwest must have looked at how much this was going to cost and panicked.
I don't believe the customer service people knew what had happened. They were chatting about how there was a "service disruption" and that it was from "American Airline's system" not theirs so it was "out of their control". Maybe they were just trying to get the blame off of them, but they definitely weren't telling people flights were being cancelled. I really think they were in the dark and I speculate (tell me if I'm wrong) the default response is to admit no fault until someone higher up says to.
What I really don't like is that I didn't receive any notification about any of this. No email or text or phone call from Southwest or the travel agency. Had I checked HN I would have found out before returning the rental car.
You're probably right about the default response. The gate agent somewhere like Southwest is more likely to get in trouble for giving away too much free stuff than too little.
I already check HN when a big web service is down. The time has come where we should check HN if our airline/train/public service is down too!
Doesn't matter the delay the desk will aways try to get out of it being their fault to save on hotel costs, etc.
I loath it but this is one of the few circumstances where you should go full assertive. Don't take it out on the desk staff, they're having a far worse day than you, but stand there and make clear you are a problem that isn't going away until there's some resolution. Suddenly the hotel voucher will appear.
I want the whole system reformed. I've had to do this with United several times now and hate it so much I'll quite literally spend $500 more just to avoid them.
Someone at Southwest must have looked at how much this was going to cost and panicked.