Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

vamarcp
Explorer C

I searched but did not find any existing direct answers to this:

 

In general, how does "your place in boarding position" work for an Early Bird customer if Southwest changes your flight, i.e. due to MAX8 grounding?

 

Specifically:

- Customer A purchased a flight on March 1 (before the MAX8 grounding) for a trip after August 5th (no MAX8 schedule changes YET) and also purchased Early Bird Check In; all on a flight currently scheduled on the MAX8.

- Customer B purchased a flight on May 1 for a different, non MAX8 flight after August 5th (but on the same day as customer A and same origin/destination); also with Early Bird.

- Some day soon, hypothetically, Southwest cancels/changes the schedules for flights after August 5 involving the MAX8.  Due to this, Southwest changes customer A's flight to be on the same flight as customer B.

::: The question is: Does Customer A still get a higher boarding position than Customer B on this Flight?

 

The only info I find on this is: As long as the change of flight occurs on the same reservation/confirmation#, then the early bird "benefits" do not change.  So, for those of you who have had their flights changed due to MAX8 schedule changes, is this what occurs? Does Southwest make the change using original confirm# due to MAX8 changes ? If not, what happens exactly?  I tried to ask this before but got a link to their Reaccommodation Practices (https://www.southwest.com/html/help/soda_reaccommodation_practices.html) but it does not answer my questions.

 

Thanks!

8 REPLIES 8

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

dfwskier
Aviator A

Hello.

 

My understanding is that if passenger A's cancellation and accomodation happen more than 36 hours before the flight time of the new flight  whichever of A or B bought EBCI first wouldhave the better boarding position.

 

EBCI poitions are determined in order of time bought -- first bought = best position / last  ought = worst position.

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

vamarcp
Explorer C

Although I understand what you are saying, I guess I am still confused on exactly how "cancellation and reaccomodation" works, and then that could answer the EBCI question.

 

So my follow up question is: Does SWA automatically rebook passenger A's cancelled MAX8 flight (to be passenger B's flight in my above example) using the same res/confirm# ? Or does SWA only inform passenger A that his/her flight is cancelled automatically and allows passenger A (i.e. "Offers the opportunity to make changes") to rebook to another flight at his/her convenience at no cost (again, to passenger B's flight in my example), assuming all this happens well in advance of 36 hours from the flight date/time?

 

Something like this must've happened already for someone already booked on a MAX8 flight for May thru July of this year, since SWA has announced passengers that are affected have been notified.  It just hasn't happened (yet) to me, so I'm not aware how reaccommodation works exactly.

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

SWDigits
Aviator A

@vamarcp wrote:

 

So my follow up question is: Does SWA automatically rebook passenger A's cancelled MAX8 flight (to be passenger B's flight in my above example) using the same res/confirm# ? Or does SWA only inform passenger A that his/her flight is cancelled automatically and allows passenger A (i.e. "Offers the opportunity to make changes") to rebook to another flight at his/her convenience at no cost (again, to passenger B's flight in my example), assuming all this happens well in advance of 36 hours from the flight date/time?


@vamarcp I had a non MAX 8 flight reservation that was automatically changed and I was also given the opportunity to make another change to something that I preferred.  Everything stayed on the same, original reservation number.


Customer | Home airport DCA

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@SWDigits wrote:

@vamarcp wrote:

 

So my follow up question is: Does SWA automatically rebook passenger A's cancelled MAX8 flight (to be passenger B's flight in my above example) using the same res/confirm# ? Or does SWA only inform passenger A that his/her flight is cancelled automatically and allows passenger A (i.e. "Offers the opportunity to make changes") to rebook to another flight at his/her convenience at no cost (again, to passenger B's flight in my example), assuming all this happens well in advance of 36 hours from the flight date/time?


@vamarcp I had a non MAX 8 flight reservation that was automatically changed and I was also given the opportunity to make another change to something that I preferred.  Everything stayed on the same, original reservation number.


Confirmation number yes - would be the same whether you change it, or they change it, or even if they change and then you call the re-change it if you didn't like their choice.

 

There is a different "ticket number" that may be re-issued to correspond to the transaction for getting on a different flight. The ticket number I think would still be a reference to what you originally bought, and you'd get a new one each change.

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

chgoflyer
Aviator A

My assumption would be that the priority given to EBCI boarding position would be the same as it is whenever any flight change is made (regardless of who made it -- Southwest or the passenger).

 

EBCI positions are initially assigned based on the time stamp of EBCI purchase. However, if you change your itinerary to a different flight, the "time stamp" becomes the time that you made the change to the new flight. (Essentially, when you "bought" that new flight, not when you bought the first one associated with those funds.)

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

 

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@chgoflyer wrote:

My assumption would be that the priority given to EBCI boarding position would be the same as it is whenever any flight change is made (regardless of who made it -- Southwest or the passenger).

 


Agreed!

 


@chgoflyer wrote:

My assumption would be that the priority given to EBCI boarding position would be the same as it is whenever any flight change is made (regardless of who made it -- Southwest or the passenger).

 

EBCI positions are initially assigned based on the time stamp of EBCI purchase. However, if you change your itinerary to a different flight, the "time stamp" becomes the time that you made the change to the new flight. (Essentially, when you "bought" that new flight, not when you bought the first one associated with those funds.)

 


I don't think I had ever seen this written although it makes sense to me. I've only ever seen in writing "time of purchase" which didn't include a footnote about flight changes. 

 

This is how I think it would actually work though.

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@DancingDavidE wrote:

@chgoflyer wrote:

My assumption would be that the priority given to EBCI boarding position would be the same as it is whenever any flight change is made (regardless of who made it -- Southwest or the passenger).

 


Agreed!

 


@chgoflyer wrote:

My assumption would be that the priority given to EBCI boarding position would be the same as it is whenever any flight change is made (regardless of who made it -- Southwest or the passenger).

 

EBCI positions are initially assigned based on the time stamp of EBCI purchase. However, if you change your itinerary to a different flight, the "time stamp" becomes the time that you made the change to the new flight. (Essentially, when you "bought" that new flight, not when you bought the first one associated with those funds.)

 


I don't think I had ever seen this written although it makes sense to me. I've only ever seen in writing "time of purchase" which didn't include a footnote about flight changes. 

 

This is how I think it would actually work though.

 

 


 

I don't think it's ever been publicly acknowledged by Southwest. But from discussion elsewhere along with my personal experience I believe that is how it works.

 

Example: I had an itinerary with EBCI attached that I changed multiple times over several months, finally booking the flight that was ultimately taken, and at that time also booking a friend on the same flight, also with EBCI. Despite my EBCI being purchased months in advance, our positions were sequential.

 

 

Re: Early Bird Check-in and MAX8 changes

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@dfwskier wrote:

Hello.

 

My understanding is that if passenger A's cancellation and accomodation happen more than 36 hours before the flight time of the new flight  whichever of A or B bought EBCI first wouldhave the better boarding position.

 

EBCI poitions are determined in order of time bought -- first bought = best position / last  ought = worst position.


Devil's advocate - I don't know if it is clear when you change flights if the clock is reset, i.e. is EBCI a new transaction on the new flight or is the priority tied only to when you purchased EBCI regardless of intermediate changes to the flight?

 

So your explanation makes sense - purchase EBCI as early as possible and stay lodged in front of the EBCI line as long as your new flight is scheduled at least 37 hours prior to departure?

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.