Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Early Bird Increase

Venetian
Explorer C

We fly Southwest exclusively, and have done so for more than a decade.  We read evey email we get, and visit SW website regularly, and never received any notification that the price for Early BIrd was going up!  We were shocked when we were quoted $100 to purchase EB for our round trip for Christmas.  Very disappointed.....

 

4 REPLIES 4

Re: Early Bird Increase

dfwskier
Aviator A

Hello.

 

If you have read some of the other posts about the EBCI price increase, you are not alone. in being upset about the price increase.

 

The increase will probably mean that fewer people will sign up for EBCI which should mean that your chances of snagging a good seat by checking in yourself exactly 24 hours pre departure would increase.

 

Your comment would seem to indicate that two people will be travelling at Christmas, so another option would be to have one person buy EBCI, and have that person board and save a seat for the other. Southwest does not prohibit seat saving.

Re: Early Bird Increase

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@dfwskier wrote:

 

 

The increase will probably mean that fewer people will sign up for EBCI which should mean that your chances of snagging a good seat by checking in yourself exactly 24 hours pre departure would increase.

 


 

Or, conversely, that more people will now be checking themselves in right at t-24 instead of buying EBCI, meaning that your chances of snagging a good seat that way would decrease.

 

Time will tell.

Re: Early Bird Increase

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@chgoflyer wrote:

@dfwskier wrote:

 

 

The increase will probably mean that fewer people will sign up for EBCI which should mean that your chances of snagging a good seat by checking in yourself exactly 24 hours pre departure would increase.

 


 

Or, conversely, that more people will now be checking themselves in right at t-24 instead of buying EBCI, meaning that your chances of snagging a good seat that way would decrease.

 

Time will tell.


I said something similar on another post - my reference point is compared to the previous pricing of EBCI, so any number of people that choose not to purchase EBCI under the new pricing improves the average position available compared to having that number of spots not being available.

 

Competition might increase if people see more of a chance, although I would expect that the same people who were checking in right on time before will continue to do so, and those that were less rigorous about their check-in times will continue to be easy-goers - the average position won't probably be all that much better. 

 

Here's an article on the subject with some numbers...I was trying to do the math, but this is a helpful reference:

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/southwest-airlines/2018/08/21/southwest-airlines-raising-prices-...

 

 

20 people buying it on a 737-700 with 143 seats is about 14% and 15 people on an -800 is 8.5% - so in that range of people currently buying EBCI it will be a little lower but even if half of the people stop doing it that's on the order of 10 spots...not a huge difference.

 

 

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

Re: Early Bird Increase

mickeyb
Explorer C

I have always flown SW exclusively but lately their prices are not commensurate with other carriers.  If their prices continue to remain high you won't have to worry about paying for Early Bird because there will be less people flying Southwest.  As an example, bought a United flight for $51 that Southwest wanted $216.  They can't justify free bags anymore with that kind of difference.