06-14-2019
12:16 AM
06-14-2019
12:16 AM
Hi All, I've reserved a flight for my family of five in October, with four paid reservations (with points) and one Companion fare (for my wife). I've flown Southwest for years and never bothered with EarlyBird check-in (EBCI), but I'm most often alone, so picking a nice seat is easy. This time, I'm considering adding the EBCI to help ensure we can all sit together. I also understand that your time of EBCI purchase is used to place you in the line for boarding positions. So, I'm left with a bit of a dilema, if I understand correctly that EBCI is not refunded on "cancelled" reservations (as that's what I'd have to do to my wife's Companion res to make a change to my other paid reservations). Am I right in thinking this odd logic on SW's part means I can either buy EBCI now for all my 5 tickets and just lose the $25 if the price goes down and I have to rebook to get the refund OR I should wait until much closer to the actual flight date before buying EBCI (when the fare's unlikely to drop any further)? I'm willing to spend the extra for the potential boarding advantage, but don't really want to just throw money away (either by not rebooking all the flights if prices drop or losing what I've spent on the Companion EBCI). Perhaps I can get around the requirement of cancelling and then rebooking the Companion fare for paid fare changes by calling (instead of doing it through the site)? Thanks for any info or advice! Justin
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