Tips to get help

The text from Southwest Airlines was short and not sweet: Flight 1600 to Las Vegas was canceled.

It included a link to rebook online but all I got were error messages when I tried. I called the reservations center and was disconnected. I called back and got a recorded message about long wait times. So while I was on hold, I turned to Twitter. I was juggling a work deadline while on hold with Southwest and accidentally sent two tweets. The first was at 2:39 p.m., the second at 2:48 p.m. Southwest responded at 2:49 p.m. and began to help.

And so began an easy exchange, via Twitter’s private direct-message feature, with one of the airline’s social media customer-service representatives. My son was on the canceled flight and I was trying to get him on my flight to Vegas an hour later. (I booked him on the earlier flight because it was cheaper; so the cancellation worked out in our favor in this case!)

I stayed on hold in case Southwest’s Twitter team wasn’t able to help, but in about 15 minutes the employee helping me said she had things under control and it was OK to hang up.

My son’s flight was rebooked by 3:22 p.m. This on a mid-June day when Southwest and other airlines were swamped with weather-related flight troubles across the country.

No lines, no long waits on the phone, no angst aside from wondering whether my son would get a new flight for our big family event.

I thanked the Southwest employee via direct message and shared the love about Southwest’s Twitter help publicly.

A couple of people suggested my problem was quickly resolved because I’m the travel writer for The Republic and azcentral.com, something noted in my Twitter profile.

To which I said: Nope. Scroll through any air-