Southwest Airlines attempted to give it's Facebook friends the opportunity to purchase half-price tickets but, somehow a glitch in the system caused customers to be billed multiple times for one flight.
Ashley Dillon, a Southwest spokesperson said on Saturday to The Associated Press, "No, it wasn't a hack, it was just a technology glitch in our system that caused that." The company realized that customers were getting duplicate bookings and billings to their credit and debit cards around 5 p.m. on Friday when they experienced the website slowing down.
Their one day, "luv2like" promotion was a sake to celebrate the airline reaching three million Facebook fans. The deal was supposed to give their customers who booked flights on Friday a 50 percent discount on selected fares.
In some cases, customers were even charged 20 or more times for a single flights, with many posting stories on the company's Facebook complaining. One customer said that they were charged $1400 for one flight they purchased that was supposed to be $69.90 and booked on the flight 20 times.
At this point Southwest says that they don't know how many people have been affected by the mishap. Dillon said that they are working to fix the problem and refund individuals as soon as possible.
She said to The Associated Press, We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience it's caused the customers. We realize that people rely on Southwest for great customer service. Yesterday a lot of folks didn't see that so we're working to make it right."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
