Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@AKOTR wrote:

 If these postings are correct, something is wrong. I have been A list for several years, bought the ticket I am using tomorrow several months ago, and the flight still has "wanna get away" fares open BUT I was assigned A 37 and A 43 on my flights. I typically get A 17-19, rarely a 20, never these numbers.


Sounds like your status may have dropped off this reservation (re: "glitch"). A call to Customer Relations on Monday should confirm, although there's not much they can do at this point, except to fix it for upcoming reservations if necessary.

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

A37 is not all that surprising for an A-List flyer depending on the route, day of week, and time of day. I've definitely had worse and have known other A-List Preferred flyers in that range even when booking months in advance.  Southwest has been giving A-List to a lot more people via various promotions so that doesn't help either. What route/date/time are you flying?

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

chgoflyer
Aviator A

On an intra-California with lots of business travelers, sure. But still an outlier. And A-43 is definitely odd. It could certainly be a flight with tons of A-Listers on it, but I still suspect glitch. (When something isn't right on Southwest, the usual answer is "glitch." 😉

 

FYI: Booking date appears to have no relationship on the assignment of A-List positions. While Southwest isn't saying how their algorithm works for ordering A-Listers, from what we know it seems to be primarily based on the fare paid, with Preferred ahead of "regular" A-Listers.

 

While there are a lot of A-Listers now who gained status due to various promotions, it's still early in the year, and the number of A-Listers increases each month of the calendar year, until it resets on Jan. 1. If they were consistently getting better positions in the later months of last year then that would be evidence of something wrong.

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

Chris8550
Explorer C

Over the last number of years as an A-List Preferred,  my boarding position has alway been anywhere from A-16 to (worst case) A-25.   Since Dec,  I have cancelled several flights,  after checking in,  due to my boarding position.   Most recently,  I was assigned C-07!  REALLY!  I have also cancelled for A-59,  and A-37..   Cancelled and booked Alaska Airlines,  which I have never flown before this change as I was a loyal SWA fan.     Due to the new policy (and every A-List Preferred member knows SWA made a change...we talk) I have become an Alaska Airlines Mileage Member and already have 4 flights under my belt that would have been SWA.     Really need to rethink how you treat your most frequent flyers.      

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

dfwskier
Aviator A

@Chris8550 wrote:

Over the last number of years as an A-List Preferred,  my boarding position has alway been anywhere from A-16 to (worst case) A-25.   Since Dec,  I have cancelled several flights,  after checking in,  due to my boarding position.   Most recently,  I was assigned C-07!  REALLY!  I have also cancelled for A-59,  and A-37..   Cancelled and booked Alaska Airlines,  which I have never flown before this change as I was a loyal SWA fan.     Due to the new policy (and every A-List Preferred member knows SWA made a change...we talk) I have become an Alaska Airlines Mileage Member and already have 4 flights under my belt that would have been SWA.     Really need to rethink how you treat your most frequent flyers.      


Duplicate post. Same post with reponses in this thread:

 https://www.southwestaircommunity.com/t5/Boarding/A-List-Prefered-Boarding/td-p/48487

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@Chris8550 wrote:

Over the last number of years as an A-List Preferred,  my boarding position has alway been anywhere from A-16 to (worst case) A-25.   Since Dec,  I have cancelled several flights,  after checking in,  due to my boarding position.   Most recently,  I was assigned C-07!  REALLY!  I have also cancelled for A-59,  and A-37..   Cancelled and booked Alaska Airlines,  which I have never flown before this change as I was a loyal SWA fan.     Due to the new policy (and every A-List Preferred member knows SWA made a change...we talk) I have become an Alaska Airlines Mileage Member and already have 4 flights under my belt that would have been SWA.     Really need to rethink how you treat your most frequent flyers.      


 

Just to clarify for anyone reading this: There is no new A-List Priority Boarding policy.

 

 

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

Chris8550
Explorer C

Thanks,  curious as to "policy that has not changed" and how you have that info.   I see from a post last Aug,  (from a SWA person?) that A list Preferred holders were allocated priority ahead of A list.   So how does this compute?  Why are there so many postings from ALP complaining of "the change"    Was there a recent IT enhancement that could have led to the issue?    

 

 

Re: Early Bird Checking with A-List Preferred Status - Idea
Profile picture of dfwskier
dfwskier
Rising Star
 

Wecome to the forum, and thanks for the suggetion.

 

Well, Jordan I'm not sure that would improve things for A List Preferred holders. Why? SW allocates boarding position first to A-List Preferred, then to A-List, then to EBCI, then to people who check themseles in. Thus A-List Preferred holders already get the best possible boarding positions, and EBCI wouldn't improve that.

 

Everyone has to "check in" to get boarding passes in order to get through security. EBCI doens't change that either.

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@Chris8550 wrote:

Thanks,  curious as to "policy that has not changed" and how you have that info.   I see from a post last Aug,  (from a SWA person?) that A list Preferred holders were allocated priority ahead of A list.   So how does this compute?  Why are there so many postings from ALP complaining of "the change"    Was there a recent IT enhancement that could have led to the issue?    

 

 

IMG00701-20100822-1145.jpg
dfwskier
Rising Star
 

Wecome to the forum, and thanks for the suggetion.

 

Well, Jordan I'm not sure that would improve things for A List Preferred holders. Why? SW allocates boarding position first to A-List Preferred, then to A-List, then to EBCI, then to people who check themseles in. Thus A-List Preferred holders already get the best possible boarding positions, and EBCI wouldn't improve that.

 

Everyone has to "check in" to get boarding passes in order to get through security. EBCI doens't change that either.


 

I'm confused as to your point.

 

A-List Prefered members are assigned boarding positions before A-Listers.

 

What are you refering to when you mention "so many postings from ALP complaining of "the change"? My guess, if these are very old posts, would be that they are from the time when Southwest experienced a widespread, well-publicized tech glitch that affected A-Listers, which was way back in August, 2017.

 

I'm not seeing any recent reports of anything like you describe, except yours.

 

Again, for seemingly the millionth time now, I suggest you contact Southwest Customer Relations and have them look into your issue. Glitches are, sadly, common, so it's entirely possible that AL or ALP is no longer attached to your RR account, or any of another dozen possible causes of your specific issue.

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

dfwskier
Aviator A

Chris, first of all it would be helpful if you only did one post on the topic. You have people responding to the same topic in two different threads. It gets confusing.

 

Second, not one single Southwest employee has responded to your posts. Southwest employees who participate in discussions self identify. The rest of us "community champions" are seasoned travellers with hundreds of flights behind each of us. We try to share what we've learned during our extensive travels - that's it.

 

Nobody here is trying to shut down what you say, but we are saying that 

1) We basically don't see what you say is happening

2) The way boarding positions are allocated has not changed based on our own experiences (A1-A15 first, then ALP, the A List, then EBCI, then people who check themselves in)

3) There has been no ALP uprising about the topic that I've seen. I've been active on the board since mid-2018 and I think yours is the first complaint of this type that I've seen.

4) If you want to complain to the company, then you have to complain to the company.  to do so, click on "contact us" at the bottom of this page, and then pick your contact method from the top left of the ensuing page.

 

Again, this is a customer forum, if you want to try to obtain resolution to a complaint, then contact Southwest.

 

Re: A-List Preferred Boarding positions

dmbolp
Explorer C

A+ here, was auto-checked in for a BS fare tomorrow, so a sign that some, if not all, BS fares get auto-checkin...don't know if it was due to being A+