The $300 From My Southwest Gift Card Vanished & Got Lost In Costco Switch To Visa

Image courtesy of David Transier

The gift of flight turned into a nightmare for a California woman when the Southwest Airlines gift card she purchased for her daughter was mysteriously canceled without notice, and then the funds vanished into thin air.

NBC San Diego reports that in 2015, the woman purchased a $300 Southwest gift card as a present only to find six months later the card was inactive.

When the daughter tried to redeem the card for an upcoming trip, the transaction wouldn’t go through. The woman then called Southwest and was informed that the card and points had been canceled and the money refunded to her American Express card.

While the woman wasn’t thrilled that the gift card was canceled without notification, the real issue was that she no longer had the American Express card.

It had been a Costco-branded credit card that switched to Citibank Visa in June 2016. When she contacted the credit card companies to find out where her money was, she was told it should have automatically transferred to her new card.

Except it hadn’t. Visa told her that too much time had lapsed and they couldn’t do anything about the missing funds.

“I couldn’t believe why nobody could find this money and my children told me Mom don’t give up,” the woman said.

Out of options, the woman contacted NBC San Diego’s 7 Responds team, which looks into consumer issues.

The team contacted Southwest, Citibank, and American Express. While none of the companies were able to actually explain why the gift card was canceled or what happened to the funds, Citibank said that because the woman was a valued customer they would credit her account for the full $300.

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