Southwest Airlines Community

You must have missed the story about the family with a 2 year old that got kicked off a flight months ago (not Southwest) for this very thing.   I agree it’s ridiculous, though. 2 year olds should not be forced to wear a mask in my view, but the airlines hands are tied. They have to follow the rules until they are relaxed, which should hopefully be soon.   —Jessica ... View more

You should be able to tell based on the “from” email address. Hover over it and see what it says. If it’s a bunch of nonsense, it’s spam. And the bigger question: did you apply for a position? If you didn’t, then it is surely a scam.   —Jessica ... View more

This very thing is one reason why I don’t book those “multi-itinery” flights because I don’t understand how baggage claims works or if you have to go through security again at the airport (or not). I’d rather not deal with the complications and have it all on one itinerary.   —Jessica ... View more

No, and Lord willing this will never become a thing since I don’t have any plans to get the vaccine anytime soon. I am in the very “last” group to get it in my state since I am healthy, work from home, and my line of work is not “essential” enough to require it.   —Jessica ... View more

Hi,   Don’t call. Reach out to Southwest on their social media channels. I prefer Twitter and whenever I have a problem someone is there to respond in minutes - even last year in the midst of COVID and constantly changing flights.   —Jessica ... View more

This doesn’t matter too much to me. I typically have a window seat so there’s nowhere for me to go anyway. If people want to gather in the aisles, it’s mostly fine — people just want to get their luggage so you don’t have to wait until their row is ready to deplane for them to get it.   —Jessica ... View more

@dfwskier wrote: 66% of today's Love field flights have already been cancelled, and it's only snowing very lightly.   26% of all Southwest flights today have been cancelled.   Later today blizzard conditions are forecast. Dallas has no idea what to do with blizzard conditions. Then it is supposed to get down to 3 degrees. That's something that happens every quarter century or so. Wow! Crazy times we are living in, when it’s colder in Texas than Pennsylvania ...   —Jessica  ... View more

This is so adorable!!! Congratulations and thank you for sharing.   —Jessica ... View more

Southwest e-mails you whenever there are changes to your upcoming flights. It's possible you missed it or it went to a junk or spam folder.   --Jessica ... View more

I don't think any airline is operating normally right now. In a few months it will be a year since we shut everything down. How much longer are we going to let this continue?   --Jessica ... View more

@1019025873 wrote: It is completely irresponsible to allow people to remove their masks on a flight. The inability to social distance by 6' should be enough to require masks to remain on during the entire duration of the flight. The CDC recommends and most local ordinances mandate 6' social distancing at restaurants. There is a reason for this! Why is it appropriate to disregard this just because we are in the sky and not on the ground? The virus doesn't know the difference. It also doesn't matter that its only when eating and drinking. I've seen people slow sip their beverage for more than an hour to keep the mask off. Can Southwest explain why they are jeopardizing lives to allow someone a "sip and snack"? REALLY? I don't think anyone has died of thirst or hunger on a 3 hour Southwest flight but people do die from COVID. Get real and get responsible Southwest!  I have flown three times during the pandemic (August, October, December - less than 4 weeks ago) and I have enjoyed my water and my little snack mix. Eating on a plane isn't going to kill you. It's incredible that we are now at a place where people are afraid to not only fly but eat a simple snack or drink a beverage on a plane. We really need to get over this irrational fear. The simple truth is that COVID (or any virus, really) does not spread on airplanes, there is plenty of data to back this up, and in any case, in all my years of flying I have never once gotten sick from any airplane trip I have ever taken. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones?    Besides all of that, planes are not full right now; in my travels this year I have had an entire row to myself more than once. The middle seat has been empty too (even after Southwest stopped blocking middle seats). One of the reasons I travelled this year was to not only prove that travel can be done, but that it can be done safely, and I wanted to have actual real experiences instead of just guessing what airplane travel is like. I am living proof that traveling can be done, it is safe, and you will not get sick by being on an airplane for a few hours at a time - and eating and drinking is fine.    --Jessica ... View more

Isn't it great when Southwest has a route that is right up your alley? I am hoping for the return of nonstop flights from PHL to LAS, as they stopped in late 2018 and I keep wishing and hoping for them to come back. No such luck yet 😉    --Jessica ... View more

I say no to the CA quarantine on your flight out, however, for international travel you may need to quarantine upon arriving to India and/or arriving back to California.   In Pennsylvania (where I live) they now want you to quarantine if you step a toe over any state lines, regardless of where you go or what you do. I'm sorry, but it's absurd. I went to Atlantic City for an overnight trip just last weekend. I basically stayed in the room and ordered take out. I'm fine. I live alone and work from home, I am not sick, never been sick this year and I can prove it (COVID antibody test from a Dec 19 blood donation is negative - this is after flying 3x with many connecting flights in "COVID" times too), so I am not going to lock myself in my house for 14 days (they actually recommend a 10 day quarantine now, not 14, but no one is talking about that) after spending less than 24 hours in a neighboring state by myself when I am not sick.      --Jessica ... View more

@xochitlr wrote: Southwest tells me that my ticket expires in 3 days and it doesn't matter if I can't travel because of the coronavirus, they can't do anything for me, nor give me a refund or change it. Southwest is not assisting in this global health contingency. Southwest has literally done everything possible to accommodate travelers during the pandemic, including extending travel funds all the way until September 2022. They did this for customer-cancelled flights from March until September - 6 entire months. I am not sure how you missed this information as it was widely communicated. In your situation you should have booked a flight anywhere using your funds between March and September, and then cancelled it, and your funds would have been extended to September 2022. You also had the ability to convert your travel funds to Rapid Rewards points, but that option ended on December 15.    --Jessica ... View more

Was the line you were waiting in to check your bag? I always check in ahead of time, and my boarding pass is already on my phone when I arrive to the airport. The later you wait to check in, the later your boarding position will be. I assume you actually checked in 24 hours ahead, and not a few hours before your flight, and were waiting in line to check a bag. If this is the case, whenever I need to check a bag I use the Curbside Check-in service instead of the "regular" check-in inside, as the inside line is almost always longer than Curbside. It's never been more than 3-4 people in my experience, and most of the time there is no one using Curbside at all, so it's pretty convenient. I don't trust myself to check and tag my own bag 😄 so I've never done the self-check-in yet.    This year I've also become really good at packing light so I don't even have to check a bag. I can make a tiny "overnight" bag last a whole weekend, and it fits underneath the seat, so for the last few trips I don't even need to go to check-in at all, I just go right to TSA and go through security.    --Jessica ... View more

@bmclary wrote: Was there really emails to some customers telling them to do this? Yes. My guess is you are not signed up to receive Southwest e-mails. There are 4 different types of e-mails they send: Click N Save, Rapid Rewards Report, Southwest in a Nutshell, and Rapid Rewards Email Update. You can sign up for these e-mails in your account under "Communications."    --Jessica ... View more

You're afraid to travel and yet you are 4,000 points away from earning Companion Pass? To earn CP you need to fly 100 times in a year or earn 125K qualifying points. So either you did a heck of a lot of flying this year or you earned one heck of a promotion 😉    --Jessica ... View more

@kbluebig wrote: My point exactly @aMomTo6   I do understand that you do potentially get a better position and yes my wife and I did get A27 and A28. That is not my issue.   My issue is, if we still have to press check-in then that nullifies the advertising stating EBCI does AUTOMATIC checkin for you. If you purchase EBCI and there still needs to be a way for the customer to obtain their boarding pass online, then change the wording of it on your website and app, to say something like, "receive boarding pass"   And also, the fact that you do not SEE the benefit until you press the checkin button within 24 hours of your flight but the advertisement says they reserve your position 36 hours before your flight. I want to SEE that added benefit right when it happens. I want to see my position 36 hours before my flight. Since that is how you are claiming this earlybird service works.    This is sort of a weird thing to cherry-pick. Early Bird automatically assigns *your boarding position* 36 hours ahead of time, as opposed to standard check in when you check in at least 24 hours before and your position is assigned during that check in process. If you have checked in for any Southwest flight at all right at the 24 hour mark, if you are more than a minute late you can see the difference in boarding positions plain as day. The benefit of Early Bird is that it eliminates all the hassle and your boarding position is automatically assigned regardless of when you actually check in. It doesn't matter if you check in right at 24 hours or an hour before, your boarding position was already assigned ahead of time, and it's almost always good and it's certainly better than anything you could have manually assigned yourself if you checked in 24 hours to a couple of hours before your flight. Your evidence of this is in your A boarding positions. A common misconception is that Early Bird guarantees an A position; it does not, but let's be honest, more times than not, you will get an A. If you don't use Early Bird, you have to be lightning quick at the 24 hour mark to get an A position, and like I said, if you are a minute or more late you're going to get a B or a C position.    You should think of it as "Early Bird Boarding Assignment", not "Check In" necessarily, since everyone has to "Check In" for their flight regardless of whether they use Early Bird or not.    --Jessica ... View more

Now that we have a vaccine with millions of doses set to be available by the end of the year (in other words: in a matter of weeks), I'd argue that the pandemic is pretty much under control now. Our vaccine is here. We've been told for months that we have to wait "until a vaccine" and here we are, way ahead of schedule.    But this:  However, last night was the worst experience I've had in many years.    That can't be true, since regarding mask compliance on airplanes, we've only been wearing masks for half a year or so.    --Jessica ... View more

I am willing to bet my life savings there was small print somewhere in your offer that said you needed to spend a certain amount to get that $200 credit. Credit card companies aren't going to give you $200 on the spot just for signing up.   --Jessica ... View more

I converted all of my small-value travel funds! Thanks for the heads up!   --Jessica ... View more

Great ideas, particularly the AM/PM! Some people may like military time ... who are they? 🤣 I think using AM/PM would be helpful.   --Jessica ... View more

@chgoflyer wrote: Hospitals are already stressed. Imagine needing emergency care (because of a heart attack, or a car accident, or any number of medical needs) and not receiving it because of staff or facility issues due to covid. If people continue to disregard the very real problems this pandemic continues to cause that will absolutely happen.   It's also astonishingly insulting to those who have lost friends and family members (and the frontline healthcare workers who put their lives on the line everyday battling this disease) to suggest that the virus isn't serious. Especially when upwards of 2,000+ people are dying, and continue to die, every day.    Hospitals aren't stressed. They are at normal capacity or below normal capacity pretty much everywhere. "Hospitals are going to be overwhelmed everybody panic" is just another fear tactic that people buy into, but it just isn't true. It wasn't true in the spring, it wasn't true in the summer, it wasn't true in the fall, and it isn't true now.    I never said the virus isn't serious, but our reaction to it has been. We never should have closed down businesses in the way that we have; I've said it before and I'll say it again, protect the vulnerable and let society function as normal. We have millions out of work and unemployed vs a 250K death toll thus far - the economic devastation is far worse than what the virus is doing. 1/2 of those deaths (if not more) are a direct result of the nursing home debacle where infected patients went to nursing homes where death occurred as a result. The average age of death from this virus is in the 80s and the vast majority have pre-existing conditions anyway - they aren't dying of COVID, they're dying with it. If you take out the nursing home deaths alone the real death count is probably 125K and I argue it's actually under 100K.    And we're wrecking our economy over this?   Here's another statistic: 17% of all restaurants in the United States have closed since March. Not temporarily, but permanently CLOSED. That's nearly 1 in 5 restaurants across the entire country.  It's total madness that we are letting this go on and letting countless livelihoods be destroyed like this. Not to mention the mental health issues and things like drug / alcohol abuse and everything else that is resulting because of our extreme overreaction to this virus. I'd also argue that deaths due to COVID causation are just as high as the COVID deaths themselves.     So, in conclusion, protect the vulnerable and let society function, that's all we need to do it's really that simple.    --Jessica ... View more

Hopefully you will get to use your travel funds as they are good from one year from the date you purchased the reservation. With a vaccine on the horizon to be distributed by the end of this year into next year, I am hopeful we can put this all behind us in the next couple of months. The virus remains mild for most and most recover, and 1 in 5 have no symptoms at all. In my opinion we've dragged this out longer than necessary already, and it's time we get back to normal business and way of life.    --Jessica ... View more

Travel funds were extended 2 entire years if cancelled prior to September 7, 2020 - the funds expire September 7 2022. As it stands now if you cancel a flight your funds are good for one year from the date of booking - standard policy, and very generous compared to other airlines.    --Jessica ... View more

It's really not. Southwest is doing what it can, no doubt, to make as much money as possible because flight capacity is still incredibly low. Speaking as one who just flew this weekend, my planes averaged 1/2 full - if that. The middle seat was empty anyway and for some flights of the trip (I had multiple stops) I had a whole row to myself.   I for one can't wait to see planes back at full capacity again, but I will enjoy all the extra room while it lasts 😉    --Jessica ... View more

This is always a touchy subject, as there are many people out there that love their pets as if they were children, and there are other people who have real mental health issues who truly  need an emotional support animal to get by. The difficulty is trying to understand the difference between the two groups of people. Those who "love" their pets and insist they can control them and that they are loving and wouldn't hurt a fly (etc.) are the problem - they try to bring their animals on board an aircraft and the animals can't be controlled. They aren't real service animals and they should not be allowed to board in my view. We need better policies around what qualifies as an emotional support animal and when/how one can bring an animal on board, because apparently people are getting around current policy and bringing non-emotional support animals on board.    --Jessica ... View more

@Taz052362 I completely agree! We need more direct flights back, but that can only happen if more people fly and there is demand for it, so it's sort of a catch-22 situation.   As it stands, I have flights this weekend that are 2 stops each way 😣 but I'm just thankful I am able to fly Southwest at this point, since they cancelled a lot of flights for December.     --Jessica ... View more

I don't think temperature checks do much in the battle against COVID, to be honest, and that's why airlines have not implemented such a procedure. Imagine the cost of trying to implement temperature checks in airports across the US. It's not worth the hassle.     --Jessica ... View more

I'm not sure who told you this but you don't need to take a COVID test to fly anywhere in the United States on Southwest Airlines.   --Jessica ... View more