As airlines merge, using vouchers can get complicated

Diane Monigle, Beverly

A. You seem to have fallen in a crack between the two airlines. AirTran’s offer still stands. But they’re just not flying where you want to use it.

So, I reached out to Southwest so see what they were willing to do.

Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz explained that the airlines are still in the process of becoming one and operating separately for the time being. Southwest offered two $100 vouchers to fly on their airline, if flying on AirTran isn’t going to work for you.

“when this was brought to our attention, we worked quickly to give the customer several options for redeeming the travel credit, and we look forward to seeing her onboard again soon,’’ Mainz said.

Given the original situation that yielded the vouchers, it seems like a reasonable option. You just have to decide which is worth more to you – the credits on Southwest or free flights that won’t get you where you want to go.

When you’re being denied compensation for an inconvenience, not something you paid for, it can be a tough fight. But some companies realize it’s a lot less expensive to offer some sort of credit than to have an unhappy customer. It’s called goodwill.

Your persistence in this case at least resulted in a solution that you can take advantage of.

Mitch Lipka has been helping consumers out of jams for the past two decades. he lives in Worcester and also writes the Consumer Alert blog on Boston.com. Mitch can be reached at . Follow him on Twitter @mitchlipka.

As airlines merge, using vouchers can get complicated