Southwest Airlines Community

@Goforwand1 wrote: @jksobonya"There is not a chance that COVID is "10 times" worse than the flu."   You have every right to your opinion but I will take the opinion of the physicians at Johns Hopkins and the other medical institutions over yours 100 times out of 100.   If you truly think influenza has the same impact as COVID-19 on the overall general population then you are just ignoring to the facts.   I do agree with you that many times the CDC and NIH have got it "wrong" on many occasions, but they have been chasing a moving target and dealing with the "politics" around COVID   I wish you continued health, regardless of our conflicting opinions-fly safe!   "The facts" about COVID-19 have been ignored in many cases, particularly the fact that COVID is a mild-to-moderate virus, always has been even before vaccines were introduced, and that most who get it recover. People love to say how infectious COVID is to make you afraid ("It's 10x worse than the flu! Run for the hills!") or how many deaths there are in the United States (or world) to show just how "deadly" it is, but they conveniently ignore how many recover. In the US, the "death count" is around 700K now but almost 45 million have gotten COVID and recovered. Worldwide, over 200 million have recovered compared to just under 5 million deaths. COVID is simply not as deadly as people seem to think it is, but getting through to them is a lost cause. People are obsessed with death when they should be obsessed with recovery; some of these lost causes go as far as to make web sites to spread fear and try to shame unvaccinated people who die of COVID. It's really sickening behavior. There is a special place in you-know-where for those who are so terrified - for no real reason - that they promote unfounded fear to the masses.    Anyway, back to mandates, I will continue to suggest in regards to US COVID deaths alone that had the nursing home "mandates" in NY, PA, OH, and other states not happened at the beginning of the pandemic, our death count would be cut significantly. We failed to protect the at-risk when they needed the most protection, and we are continuing to fail by over-protecting the least at-risk which is children. It really is a shame.    --Jessica ... View more

@PetertheProphet wrote: If only you folks had felt that way about masking. It's funny...if we use your logic, vaccines can only be recommended, but masks HAVE to be forced even on two year old children with disabilities. The bottom line is that it was never going to just end at masking. I know that flight attendants, gate agents, and even ramp employees enjoyed the power trip of enforcing mask mandates, but if they weren't aware that vaccine mandates would follow the masking, then that's their fault. They sure aren't getting any sympathy from me I do feel that way about masking. I've never agreed with the mask mandates, either. I don't think they do much overall to "stop the spread" of anything (particularly if you are wearing flimsy cloth masks bought in drug stores or on Amazon) and don't get me started on masking 2 year old children. I've seen videos of adults trying to mask 2 year olds at a daycare and the 2 year old keeps taking the mask off, and the adult keeps putting the mask back on. It's horrific. The United States is the only country that "requires" masking children this young that I am aware of. Most other countries do not do this. Makes you think.    Any adult out there who is seriously afraid of catching COVID from a child - especially after they have been vaccinated - needs help. Children are the lowest of the lowest of risks of not only catching COVID themselves but spreading it to anyone else. The CDC data overwhelmingly proves this, but people don't care about facts anymore.    --Jessica ... View more

Shouldn't be a problem, as long as your travel funds are still valid. Depending on when you purchased/cancelled your flight, if you did so between March-Sept 2020 your travel funds should be valid until September 2022, otherwise, they are good from one year when you purchased the flight (not when you intended to fly). As an example, if you purchased your flight in February 2020 and then cancelled it in February 2020, your funds would be valid until February 2021, so they are no longer valid now. If you purchased/cancelled in November, however, they would still be good until November 2021.    --Jessica ... View more

I'll take "this didn't happen" for $100, Alex.   --Jessica ... View more

Oh I should also add: on rare occasions when my flight times are perfect I can take the train to/from the airport. Parking in a SEPTA surface lot is just $1/day 😁 and Norristown has a bigger parking garage that is $3/day if you get your pass validated at a SEPTA station, $6/day if you don't. Actually, come to think of it I am not sure if the Norristown Transportation Center garage has opened back up yet. I don't think it has. The SEPTA surface lots have actually been free to use to encourage more people to ride again. I just checked and the free parking is good until December 2021! SEPTA train rates vary and that's a whole other topic of discussion, really, but suffice to say, taking the train is cheaper overall. Unfortunately SEPTA doesn't run the Regional Rail 24/7, and often my flights either leave too early or arrive too late, so it is rare that I can take the train. But if I could, I would, especially now because parking is free!   --Jessica  ... View more

@bwallet wrote: @jksobonya 700,000 people have died of COVID in less than 2 years. Seeing the flags on the Mall reminded me of the AIDS quilt (I saw that on the Mall many years ago) so I looked it up. Approximately the same number of people have died of COVID in the US in less than 2 years as have died from HIV/AIDS in the past 40 years. Oh, an somewhere between 12k and 60k people die of the flu every year. Follow the alligator 350k > 60k. That's 5x worse than the worst flu and 10x worse than what one might think of as a typical flu year.   Oh, and I'm not an epidemiologist, but my job title is "Computational Geostatistician". I've said this before, but I don't trust the COVID numbers one bit. Never have. People may have died "with" COVID, but very few I'd argue have died "of" it. The vast majority of people who have passed "with" COVID are in one of 2 categories: 1) elderly 75+ or 2) obese. Maybe if we did something proactive to combat obesity and promote exercise and healthy eating, we would see a decrease in not only COVID deaths, but deaths overall.    Obesity is the real pandemic - not COVID, in my view.    --Jessica ... View more

lol I love the "are you a epidemiologist" responses - all that says is that you don't want to acknowledge the truth, so you try to be insulting instead. Not going to work with me. There is not a chance that COVID is "10 times" worse than the flu. These kinds of estimates from "experts" have been wrong since March 2020. The mere fact that COVID has "strains" makes it similar to common cold and flu viruses. There are many types of coronaviruses out there - COVID-19 is not the first, they are all in the same family and produce similar symptoms. For many, the flu is actually worse than COVID, and that's a fact. The "severe" reactions to COVID have been overblown and sensationalized by the media to make you afraid - that's one reason this has gone on for as long as it has. If we didn't have the internet and instant news, this would have been over in the late spring of 2020. But here we are ...    Back to the point, flying has always been safe, I have flown many times since March 2020 and have been fine. We don't need this vaccine to be mandated to fly with Southwest.    --Jessica ... View more

Normally when changes occur to your flight(s) Southwest sends you an e-mail acknowledging the change and gives you an option to book a different flight free of charge if you do not like the changes; however, the free change must be done shortly after the e-mail is received (72 hours, but I have heard in some cases it may be a bit longer than that).    In my experience, Southwest has e-mailed me almost all the time, but there has been a time or two when they did not and I had to contact them explaining what happened and any change(s) I wanted to make.   --Jessica ... View more

IMO, this is a hot topic and everyone is going to have an opinion about it. As for me personally, I don't think mandating this particular vaccine at a company level is going to solve anything in regards to stopping the spread since vaccinated people can still get and spread the virus just like unvaccinated people can, albeit the "symptoms" for a vaccinated person will be "less severe" - but what people fail to realize is that for most, symptoms have been "less severe" from the very beginning. People now attribute less severe symptoms to being vaccinated, but 1 in 5 people who caught COVID in 2020 pre-vax had no symptoms at all (that's 20% of *all* people who got the virus) and the vast majority of the remaining have had mild to moderate symptoms. As I predicted, COVID is turning out to be more and more like the flu and it should be treated as such. We don't mandate flu vaccines, but many companies recommend getting one each winter season and they can be obtained for free through many healthcare providers with insurance. COVID should be the same. It shouldn't be mandated, but it can be recommended and those who feel they need it can get it. And we move on with life.    --Jessica ... View more

Southwest does not fly to these destinations, so we aren't going to be of much help here. You might want to find a forum or community for the airlines you are actually flying with 😉    --Jessica ... View more

@rupigice wrote: Is anyone having an issue where you aren't getting email confirmations for flights booked? Agent sent 3x but never got it. If I booked a flight, I'd get the points adjustment email but no confirmation of flight booked.   I always get e-mail confirmations when I book my own flights on Southwest.com. Did you book your flight yourself, or did your agent? It sounds like an agent booked it for you (?) and then tried to forward the e-mail confirmation to you (??). That doesn't sound like a Southwest problem - make sure your agent has your correct e-mail address and/or check your junk/spam folders.   --Jessica ... View more

It's not misleading. The warning on Southwest.com for negative tests and/or quarantining is for transpacific passengers who are traveling outside of Hawaii to Hawaii.  This is explained clearly here:    https://www.southwest.com/coronavirus/hawaii/   And here:    https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel/    --Jessica ... View more

@Tami3 wrote: Secondly, in the past because they under 3 oz., are you still allowed to have an airline bottle of alcohol to mix with a juice on the plan. I get nervous flying and like to have a drink to take the edge off while flying.   I used to do this myself, not because of nervousness but because I wanted a drink to relax, but I found out that you are not actually allowed to drink your own alcohol on board. You have to buy it on the plane (which they are currently not serving).   --Jessica ... View more

@Suzshax wrote: We need nonstop flights.   No you don't! Nonstop flights are as rare as a unicorn for the places I fly out of PHL these days. Sure it's nice to have the convenience of nonstops, but I've learned to do 1-2 stops without any problems. The only thing I really look for is that the connection time is at *least* 45 minutes. I prefer an hour or two just in case something goes wrong and a connection gets missed (it's happened) and having a few hours gives me time to relax and eat. Most airports have a lot of fun and unique restaurant options (look past the typical fast food food court), something that I feel is rarely discussed!   --Jessica ... View more

Seems strange, being from the UK do you even have a Southwest account? I am doubting it since Southwest does not serve there, but if you do, I'd log on and see if there is any activity, but if not, it sounds like some sort of scam.    You say it was prompted by an e-mail - what did the e-mail look like? Can you confirm it actually came from Southwest? I checked a few of the e-mails that I get when flights are booked or changed and the from address is southwestairlines@ifly.southwest.com. If your from address doesn't look like that, it's definitely a scam.    --Jessica ... View more

Your phone calendar wouldn't be automatically updated with any changes because it uses information from your original e-mailed reservation to populate the calendar. My calendar has an "Inbox" and sometimes when there is a flight update or change (that is e-mailed to me) my "Inbox" is populated and I have to accept the change for it to show on my calendar.    That aside - Southwest should have e-mailed you about this change. Assuming they did, you should be able to change your flight to any available time for free within 72 hours.    My assumption though - since you only noticed the change when you checked in 24 hours ahead of your flight - is that you were not aware of an e-mail and thus was not aware of the change.    I make it a habit to regularly check my upcoming flights just to make sure nothing is changed that I am not aware of - I am almost always e-mailed when Southwest makes changes, however there were a select few times when I was not, and had I not checked my reservations regularly, I too would have been caught off guard.    --Jessica ... View more

@SteveD89 wrote: I love SWA as A single business traveler. It is extremely frustrating to travel with the family. For starters you were not able to add other profiles for other family members into your profile. How would "family reservations" work in theory? How does it work at other airlines?  Do they have some sort of family check-in where you check in once and you are all checked in at the same time somehow, and all your boarding passes are generated?   --Jessica ... View more

@misukrankin1 wrote: They canceled my flight 11 times    I have flown many many times in 60 years of my life but I have never had this kind of experience! Ah, the classic line.   Flights don't get cancelled more than once. They can get delayed multiple times. Sounds like you experienced delays, but even I doubt a single flight was delayed 11 separate times.    --Jessica ... View more

Not only is there no evidence of this being true ... this is why we have vaccines.    --Jessica ... View more

This may not be exactly the same as Southwest.com, but on Southwest you go to My Account > Profile > Login & Security. You can edit your Security Questions and Answers there for your standard account. See if there is anything similar on the account you are viewing.    --Jessica ... View more

@Supetk08 wrote: We thought we had a year to use that is what every single company is doing.  You did have a year - your travel funds for cancelled flights are valid one year from the date you book, not one year from the date you fly. This is standard Southwest policy and something Southwest always did even before the pandemic. (Other airlines never did anything like this - in fact, you would have to pay fees to cancel your flight with any other airline, forget about having travel "credit" with them.)    --Jessica ... View more

@titosmom wrote: I am close to earning A list status and am unsure if i understand the rules correctly.   I have completed 19 of 25 flights but have two round trips booked.   Will i satisfy the requirement (6 segments) or is it only if I fly six individually booked legs? Two round trips would = 4 one way flights, so you would only be at 23 of 25 flights once these flights are completed.   Booking one way flights separately instead of as a "round trip" will be the same amount of flights in the end; however, if you have a longer flight that would normally have a connection, you can book each *connection* separately and then each of those segments would count as 1 flight. Otherwise, your flight with any connection(s) would just be one flight, if that makes sense. This is one way people get to A-List, etc., faster.    --Jessica ... View more

All airlines (and public transit for that matter) require masks. The mandate was supposed to have ended this month but it got extended to January 2022. IMO it can be a bit of a pain, but ultimately it's not a big deal. I've worn masks for hours on flights without issue.   --Jessica ... View more

@dfwskier wrote: Southwest gave everyone 10 flight credits  toward A List or A List Preferred   So to get to A List, on only needs 15 flight credits. Get creative.   I'm making A-List for the first time thanks to the 10 flight credit bonus! Couldn't make it last year, but when they announced it again I was determined to get it! 3 one way flights away ... I'll be there by November!   --Jessica ... View more

@JBALAIS85 wrote:   Unless the airline has not updated its page, this is what I am seeing. I was just trying to figure out what it means by "documentation required."   You need to click "View More Details" which will take you here:   https://www.southwest.com/coronavirus/california/   Which says the following: Anyone traveling to Los Angeles or Burbank will be required to fill out a Traveler Form prior to arrival.    That's what it means by "Documentation Required" - it's just a travel form you have to fill out.   --Jessica ... View more

I'm confused. Doesn't the "Customer of Size" policy address this? You should be able to purchase more than one seat to ensure that you have 2 seats available for you - and you should be reimbursed for it, too.    https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/extra-seat/index-pol.html    Guidelines for Customers of Size   Customers who encroach upon any part of the neighboring seat(s) may proactively purchase the needed number of seats prior to travel in order to ensure the additional seat(s) is available. The armrest is considered to be the definitive boundary between seats; width between the armrests measures 17 inches. The purchase of additional seats serves as a notification to Southwest of a special seating need, and allows us to adequately plan for the number of seats that will be occupied on the aircraft.  In turn, this helps to ensure we can accommodate all Customers on the flight/aircraft for which they purchased a ticket and avoid asking Customers to relinquish their seats for an unplanned accommodation. Most importantly, it ensures that all Customers onboard have access to safe and comfortable seating. You may contact us for a refund of the cost of additional seating after travel. Customers of size who prefer not to purchase an additional seat in advance have the option of purchasing just one seat and then discussing their seating needs with the Customer Service Agent at their departure gate. If it is determined that a second (or third) seat is needed, they will be accommodated with a complimentary additional seat(s).   --------------   --Jessica ... View more

I only have two words to say: who. cares?    I fly Southwest because they are an airline that I love. I don't care one lick about "state politics" or "company politics" for that matter  - I'd have to drop nearly every product that I buy if I had to have a company be "in line" with my personal beliefs, and I will also say this: as a Pennsylvanian, I'd gladly move to Texas in one literal baby's heartbeat.    --Jessica ... View more

I expected to use the travel credits the following year to hopefully repeat the trip over this years Christmas holiday.  Unfortunately, when I tried to use the credits, I found out they expire in October, when I initially purchased the trip that I had to cancel.    Travel funds last one year from the date of purchase - not one year from the date you intend to fly. I'm sorry you didn't realize this, but this is standard policy. Had you purchased and cancelled between March - September 7, 2020, the funds would have been good until 2022.    --Jessica ... View more