Southwest Airlines Community

Yes, vouchers can be used by anyone. Be aware though, vouchers only cover the travel portion, not any taxes or fees. ... View more

The flyer always gets the points for their ticket, regardless of who purchased it. The points are earned after the completion of travel.   To earn additional points for the purchase, get the Southwest Visa Card. The cardholder will earn 2 points per dollar for all Southwest (and partner companies) purchases (1 point per dollar for everything else), including purchases for others. ... View more

Great suggestion, but they're not going to do that. At least, not anytime soon. They have their hands full fixing the many, many glitches created by the transition to the new system. And they don't consider this a glitch, but a benefit (to them).   The Contract of Carriage allows them to cancel any bookings they feel are made "without the intent to travel."   They've actually just added this information to the "what you need to know" screen when booking a flight:   Prohibition of Multiple/Conflicting Reservations: To promote seat availability for our Customers, Southwest prohibits multiple reservations for the same Passenger departing from the same city on the same date, or any multiple reservations containing conflicting or overlapping itineraries (such as departures for the same Customer from multiple cities at the same time). Furthermore, without advance notice to the Passenger or purchaser, Southwest may cancel such reservations, or any other reservations that it believes, in its sole discretion, were made without intent to travel. With the exception of Southwest gift cards, funds from proactively cancelled reservations by Southwest will be returned to the original form of payment. Reservations paid for with a Southwest gift card will have the amount applied from the gift card held as travel funds for use by the Customer on a future Southwest Airlines flight. ... View more

FYI: TSA has reduced significantly the number of passengers who will receive PreCheck without a Know Traveler Number, or by just "opting in."   More info in this post: Changes You Need to Know to TSA Precheck Qualifications ... View more

Saving seats may be inconsiderate, but Southwest allows it.   I personally have no problem if someone saves a middle seat, but whole rows and especially the bulkhead and exit row seats should never be saved, in my opinion.   Which means nothing, because Southwest allows seat saving. ... View more

Unfortunately, the Family Boarding policy is very vague. It literally says, "an adult traveling with a child..."   In practice, two adults are often allowed to board with a child. Or multiple children, including some over the age limit. Or multi-generational families. It's very much up to the discretion of the Ops Agent, which becomes a problem if that discretion is wielded based on bigotry or bias.   In my opinion, incidents such as the recent one involving the two fathers are caused by the vague policy and inconsistent application. Southwest would do well to address this, but I suspect they won't.   😞 ... View more

Thank you, I'm aware how exit row seating works. 😉   We do not know if the 83 year old grandmother was able to answer the exit row qualification question in the affirmative, or for that matter if it was even asked. Southwest's statement conveniently avoids mentioning anything about that.   We do know that she was sat there by the FAs, as it was the last remaining available seat on the plane. After the family were held from boarding until after all other passengers had boarded. And that the grandmother is described as "frail."   Ultimately, as I have said earlier, Southwest just simply failed, multiple times, in this incident.   First, they failed to apply the literal terms of the Family Boarding policy -- vague as it is -- by stopping, for whatever reason, the family of three adults and three children, all wishing to board together; and 2) they failed to uphold the spirit of the Family Boarding policy, which is to allow families to board together so that they may sit together.   The policy literally says, "an adult traveling with a child." This family had three sets of "an adult traveling with a child." By the literal interpretation of the written policy, they were 100% compliant.   But of course, the policy is so vague as to be interpreted many ways. Two parents with a child are generally never stopped, despite this not being what the official policy allows. And, many times I have seem multi-generational families board together during Family Boarding without issue. Or parents with multiple children, some over the age of 6, all boarding together.   Please use some common sense here. Two parents, traveling with three children -- twin boys age 3 and a girl age 5 -- plus their 83 year old grandmother -- tried to board as a family, and were denied.   Yes, the grandmother and one father could have likely preboarded, but one assumes that wasn't desirable because that would leave the other father to board with all three children by himself. Remember, two 3 year olds and a 5 year old. Three strollers. One father.   Keep in mind that Family Boarding is not Preboarding. Family Boarding happens between the A and B groups. Although they could have preboarded, they chose to wait and board together during Family Boarding, presumably so that the two fathers could attend to both the three children as well as the grandmother.   The father believes they were profiled because they are a gay couple. We don't know if that's true or not because we weren't there. But Southwest explanation doesn't make sense, as it's 1) not in keeping with the language of the official policy and 2) not in keeping with common practice.   Whatever the reason, it was wrong.               ... View more

Also, be aware that, while the FAs tried to assist and hold seats for the family, they were unable to, which led to the 83 year old grandmother, described by the son-in-law as "frail," being seated in the exit row -- a questionable decision at best. ... View more

Here's the policy.   Do families get to preboard? An adult traveling with a child six years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the “A” group has boarded and before the “B” group begins boarding. If the child and the adult are both holding an “A” boarding pass, they should board in their assigned boarding position.       Note that it says, "an adult traveling with a child." This could mean one adult and one child only. Or two adults and any number of children. Or one adult per child. The family in question had three adults and three children -- technically in compliance with the policy.   Another area of the website shows this graphic with two parents and two children, which simply says "families."      Whether or not bias was the cause of this family being stopped (which is debatable, but ultimately only known to those who were actually there), it's clear that they should not have been per the intent of the policy -- that families use Family Boarding so that they can board and sit together.   These issues stem from Southwest vague policy and inconsistent application. Southwest would do well to craft and publish a clear policy and apply it consistently. Until they do, problems like this one will likely continue.   Remember this incident when the next one occurs, as, sadly, I suspect nothing will be changed as a result of it. ... View more

For international travel only, you must use the More Rewards function -- only available to Southwest Visa Card cardholders. At the moment, international booking through More Rewards is down (and has been for some time), meaning you must call More Rewards to book: 1-800-833-4861.   ... View more

Even worse is that the new system will now cause "fully refundable" fares (Business Select, Anytime, Senior) to become non-refundable if you make any change to the itinerary.   Astoundingly bad development, Southwest. ... View more

EarlyBird Check-In transfers over as long as you use the "change flight" function, and the confirmation number stays the same. If you cancel and then rebook, you will lose EBCI, which is non-refundable. ... View more

Assuming you didn't purchase EarlyBird Check-In, you can check in online beginning at 24 hours prior to departure. Your boarding position is assigned based on the time you check in, so doing so as close to exactly 24 hours prior is a good idea. ... View more

Unfortunately, refunds often take quite some time with Southwest -- 6-8 weeks is their usual stated timeframe.   You can always start an inquiry with your credit card, which will put the funds back into your account immediately, but temporarily, while they research the claim. That's usually long enough to cover until Southwest processes it back.   The long delay for refunds is may hurt many customers, in light of the new policy making fully refundable fares non refundable after any changes. Since the solution is to cancel and rebook, a lot of customers will have a lot of funds held by Southwest, who presumably is making money off of the float.     ... View more

Southwest's new reservation system has that limitation, and they have no intention of changing it. 😞   Here's a work-around: Book a "dummy" flight using two vouchers. It doesn't matter where, just make sure the name is the same as the final flight you need. Then cancel, and use those funds plus the remaining voucher towards the new actual flight. ... View more

Yes. You can create a Rapid Rewards account and request points for flights taken in the previous 12 months.   After you've created your RR account:   To claim points for a past flight, simply log into your account, select My Account and choose the Manage tab within My Rapid Rewards. Choose Request past points in the grey bar and enter your record locator (confirmation number) from your reservation. ... View more

Long hold times are, unfortunately, pretty much standard these days. Especially on a day when a new schedule hasn been released. Your best bet for a quick response is Twitter. ... View more

Call. A phone rep can separate the itineraries into multiple confirmation numbers for you, and then you can make changes as needed. ... View more

New schedules load throughout the night. There is no set time. In general, the schedule is fully updated early on th following day. ... View more

You don't need a card. You never need to show it, so it's pointless. There's no reason to carry it with you.   I actually can't stand carrying around all the various cards I need for grocery stores, drug stores, etc. Luckily, I have an app that stores them all. 😉 ... View more

No. Using points doesn't affect the A-List Tier Qualifying Points counter. ... View more

You don't actually have an "account" with Southwest for these types of funds. Credits from canceled or re-fared flights are held as "travel funds" under the confirmation number of the original flight. You need to know the confirmation number(s), but can look up the amount(s) available and the expiration date(s) here:   View Travel Funds   To use these funds, just enter the confirmation number under the payment section when you buy your flight (or give it to the phone rep if you're calling).     Keep in mind the following: -- Funds can only be used by the original passenger(s) -- Funds expire one year from the original date of purchase (not date of travel), and all new travel must be completed by then (not just booked) -- When you apply any funds, the entire new reservation (including any new money) takes on the expiration date of the oldest funds applied     ... View more

Correct.   The only thing to keep in mind is that Southwest requires point earning activity every two years or they will close your account and you will lose all your accumulated points. Keeping the credit card means that will never happen. ... View more

Are you buying a Southwest gift card? If so, that's a very bad redemption value use of points. Just book the flights for her.   In general, using point for anything other than Southwest flights loses about half of the value of the points. Or more.   FYI: When there is a points "sale," they are most often extra value offers, As in, "earn 30% bonus points." Of the last 5 points offers I received, only one was "save 30% on points," which was in April of 2016 ... View more

Correct -- it's absolutely dependent on routes and time of day (number of people accessing the same bandwidth). But since reliability is so poor, it's essentially useless to me. The couple of times I've really needed it -- even for something as simple as replying to client emails as some crisis is developing-- it's failed.   If you can't count on it when you need it, what's the point? ... View more

Southwest contracts with Row44 as a "partner," and the details of that agreement aren't public. My udnerstanding is that it's essentially a break-even; they provide the service and get the revenue at a net-zero cost to Southwest. Customer service reps will refund your $8 fee on request, which presumably is deducted from Row44's earnings. My earlier comments about bandwidth costs applied to Row44 not Southwest. If more people used more bandwidth then the agreement between the "partners" would change. There's likely a variable scale involved now, or alternately a bandwidth cap in place that controls Row44s costs. ... View more

In-seat power just isn't going to happen on Southwest. They spent millions on retrofitting all the planes with new seats (Evolve) which added an extra row and reduced legroom. They could have added it then, but they didn't. They can't justify the extra weight without corresponding increase in revenue (extra seats = more money, adding power = less money). The bottom line drives all decisions these days.   Not gonna happen. ... View more

My understanding is that it's a new policy, "caused" by the new reservation system. Perhaps an official rep will correct me if I'm wrong. ... View more