Good Day Everybody!
Summer 2024 is nearly in the book.
Last month, SoCalFlyer97 had a nice summer day trip up in the Bay Area which included my first SW flight into SFO. I have traveled up north on numerous instances via the LUV airline and have always used OAK or SJC airports with the former being a SW Focus City or "hub", but this flight that was originally booked in the middle of June during the BDAY-50 sale had the region's Big airport SFO listed with the discounted fare. That gave me an opportunity to explore the Bay Area's largest plane depot.
So the journey begins at my primary origin airport in SAN where I find out there was a bit of a weather delay:
Departing Flight
Plane: 737-700, N418WN
83% Full, Held at Gate for 73 mins (SFO Ground Delay from Low Clouds)
Preboards: 3
RR Point Redemption Value: $0.01524 / Point
I've calculated the point redemption vale by dividing the point redemption "price" for this flight by the quoted cash fare minus the $5.60 taxes/fees. The 1.5 cent value is right on par with the average and is a good value in my opinion.
I will mention that during booking, I also explored the option of paying both with cash and points, but all of the redemption options that I saw on the checkout page added up to only a $0.00625/point trade off value; that is an excessively low return in my opinion--far too many points spent for the dollar saved.
Why am I mentioning this? As a regular traveler who posts to this forum regularly, it is in the best interest of those reading my posts that I post the straight truth of my SW Flight Experiences which includes SW offers during the booking phase that I feel are not worth the buy.
A 5/8-of-a-cent trade off for the hybrid booking option is not a good buy in my opinion considering the same flight booked with all-points returned about at 1.5 cent / Point value. The hybrid option has got to be in better territory for me to consider using it or recommending it to others.
Anyway, when I got to SAN on the morning of my flight, I learned that SFO had low clouds which prompted the FAA to issue the Ground Delay of about 73 mins from SAN. Legitimate weather disruption--fair enough.
I double-checked the itinerary for the day and confirmed there was no serious impact to my trip plans as I was able to take care of some of my online tasks for the day while waiting at the gate in SAN. Plus the plane was ready at the gate once the hold gets lifted. In a case like this, best to be at the gate area to wait out the delay in case the Ground Delay gets lifted early. Thus, I head over to airside.
During the TSA screening through the PreCheck Lane, SoCalFlyer97 "won" their randomized contest and got an invitation (an order to be exact) to Secondary Inspection. The metal detector issues these random secondary signals to the agents when a PreCheck passenger passes through at "unpredictable" intervals. Process was simple and took about 45 seconds...they just did a swab test on my cell phone. My last few TSA random secondaries involved me taking my shoes off and putting them through the X-ray machine; others involved me being screened via the body scanner with belt and shoes on. These have all been quick and easy and usually add no more than 1-2 minutes to the process.
Plane was held at the gate for the full 73 minutes. Boarding started 30 minutes prior to the delayed departure. Once on board, I ran into a somebody who knew me from my church...total positive surprise! In addition, a family boarded and informed the crew that it was their children's first flight ever; they had an opportunity to photo-op with the pilots in the cockpit. Nice redeeming moments! For the record, I wasn't able to locate anything public of this photo-op nor couldn't find it posted to SW Social Media but I'm sure the family will not forget that experience.
Once at San Francisco, I went into town and took care of what I needed to take care of.
Even with the delay, I still had some time to spare and made a stop to a historic religious site near SFO dubbed Holy Cross Cemetery in the Colma area before returning home. This town has an interesting key fact: Most of its land space are cemeteries which gives this area some interesting slogans.
Being a big mega airport and my first time taking a departing SW flight from there, I decided head back to SFO a full two hours ahead of time via the BART. However, once I got there it felt like a regular trip to me. I didn't have any overwhelming feeling of using SFO.
Add to that, SFO's new Terminal B which has SW's gates is a very nice place to hang out.
As mentioned, the BART train system connects directly into SFO. Like OAK, one would need to board a connecting Automated People Mover train to connect to the terminals. Unlike OAK where the APM is part of the BART system and costs $7.10 each way to ride to/from the BART mainline, there is no additional charge to ride SFO's AirTrain APM's to/from BART.
AirTrain has two routes: Red and Blue. Red circulates in a clockwise loop linking all the terminals with the BART and SFO's Grand Hyatt hotel. Blue links the above but going counterclockwise and also extending to the north to link travelers to the Car Rental Center and Long Term Parking.
I elected to use the Red Line as it had the lighter load given the fewer stops.
And yes, once again, SoCalFlyer97 takes the cab view and "drives" the train.
SFO has airside connectors linking all of their terminals with each other except in between the A and G-Gate International Concourses (one would need to pass through the other terminals to access these airside without having to go through TSA again).
When I came back to SFO to return home in the afternoon, I went in through the United Terminal 3 because...
...No waiting at TSA!
SoCalFlyer97 nearly got a two-in-a-row for a random secondary. The person in front of me got it when he passed through the metal detector and the secondary "beep" dinged. Had I got selected again, I'd probably make a request to have my return flight diverted to LAS...Just kidding!
Speaking of TSA, it looks like SFO sets the bar in marketing both TSA PreCheck and the Global Entry Mobile App throughout the terminal.
I'd love to see the Global Entry App work with our land borders too via the SENTRI and US-bound NEXUS lanes to possibly speed up the pedestrian admissions interview process.
Return Flight
Plane: 737-700, N7833A
About 95% Full
Departed 20 mins late but recovered all lost time en-route for on time arrival.
Preboards: 4
Point Redemption Value: $0.01488 / Point
(1.488 cents per point spend is fair-and-square tradeoff in my opinion.)
Got some nice views of Monterey Bay just before the cruise altitude. Could the MRY Airport benefit with Southwest flights? For now, I am aware that a ground transit provider called Groome Transportation offers private shared shuttle departures every 90 minutes that connects both SFO and SJC to the Monterey area which means one can still fly SW and enjoy this area.
For now, I'm thankful that SAN's got the LUV airline. Plane recovered its lost time from the SFO gate hold thanks to quick taxi and docked at the SAN gate on time.
I'll be posting a new article to my Trains-to-Plane in AUS series very soon which covers a pair of SW Hotels bookings followed by my return flight home:
SoCalFlyer97 is also scheduled to be headed back to SMF later this month for a day trip.
Stay tuned and travel safely!
