Southwest Airlines says they are working to correct extra charges caused by computer glitch

BRADENTON - When Sue Lockliear of Bradenton heard her favorite airline Southwest was giving away half price tickets Friday as apart of the "Luv2Like" promotion, she logged on as soon as she could and tried to book a ticket to Washington.

"That is what I need, something to get me out there," she said.

But when she entered her credit card something strange happened.

"The card was denied and I thought that was really odd," she said.

She tried again with another credit card and then a debit card. Each time getting error messages.

"I still had no ticket or at least I didn't think I had a ticket," she said.

Saturday morning Sue woke up to a big surprise in the form of many emails.

"I had seats. I had tickets. I had 44 confirmations," she said.

In a statement to ABC Action News Southwest Airlines confirmed an overwhelming response to a ticket promotion caused website issues.

The promotion was meant to be a celebration for reaching three million fans on Facebook, instead an unknown number of passengers, like Sue, had multiple reservations.

"I was freaking out. Personally I was like oh my 'gosh how is this even possible?' It ended up adding up to close to five thousand dollars for a $120 ticket," she said.

The additional flights maxed out one of Sue's credit card and froze another.

"You kind of put everything on hold because you don't know what your financial situation is," she said.

Southwest told ABC Action News it is working to resolve the issues. They've called in extra staff who are identifying duplicate bookings, canceling additional reservations and processing refunds to customers.

Sue said despite the hassle, this experience will not stop her from flying Southwest.

"If they offered something like this again I would jump on it and cross my fingers that nothing else happens," she said.

For those Customers who used debit cards and have received overdraft fees as a result of the additional charges, Southwest will process a reimbursement for all overdraft fees that were caused by duplicate charges from Southwest for a single purchase.

If you incurred overdraft fees, please fax documentation of those fees via a letter from your bank or a copy of your account showing the fees to (877) 506-0154 .