07-19-2023
11:19 AM
Well, fguy will be happy as SWA informed me today they are no longer (well, “currently,” I was told) providing drink coupons through Rapid Rewards. The rest of us, maybe not so much. Four coupons for what amounts to every five roundtrips was a pretty nice perk that could maybe be reasonably slightly curbed to two or so. Zero coupons for your most-frequent flyers is just cheapskate behavior.
Edit: I see there has already been a thread about this. My bad; it didn’t come up in my search. Regardless, a bummer.
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50 minutes late, no need to use the word “debacle” here. Come on, let’s get a grip. Since it wasn’t weather-related, you should indeed be due a small voucher. Just call and politely (key word), say, hey, this was an imposition on me and my family based on SWA operations decision, is there the possibility of some recompense here? and I bet you’ll be offered something reasonable for your…50 minutes.
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06-16-2023
10:25 AM
06-16-2023
10:25 AM
Ack! Sorry to hear that but I feel a little less crazy/unperceptive. FWIW both of my legs yesterday stayed A16, so maybe this is just a random gremlin. Hopefully it gets fixed soon though, people pay for those higher boarding numbers one way or the other.
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So, to (hopefully) close out this little mystery, there was no one in line between A16-A20 when we boarded. Weird. I didn’t even bother asking around, and still hardly a matter: there were only 75 people on this flight. I’m back to A16 for both legs tomorrow so fingers crossed they will stay that way!
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I’ve found that if the priority lane is down for the evening or otherwise not there, if I ask staff where the A-list priority line is they will basically shout you to the next available agent.
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I’m most apt to believe it was always A37, seems like Occam’s Razor, it just strikes me as odd as that number is way way high for me and I feel like I definitely would’ve noticed.
I like the aircraft theory though it’s always been a 700. I probably will ask around in line.
Thanks all!
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06-14-2023
01:56 PM
06-14-2023
01:56 PM
This is a new one for me. For what it’s worth, the Southwest agent I just spoke to said it was a new one for her too, and couldn’t figure out how or why it happened.
I have a flight today going from Tulsa to Dallas. When I checked in last night, I got A17. I took small note of this because I almost always get A16, but didn’t really think anything else of it. However, when I went to check in for my flight to Santa Barbara tomorrow, I glanced and noticed that my number for my flight today changed to A37?!?
This is hardly the end of the world, especially for such a short flight (I might feel differently on a four hour flight, heh) but it is a little vexing. Has this ever happened anyone else? your number changing after initial assignment? The only theory I had was that maybe another TUL – DAL flight got canceled and they moved all the business select on that one up on a subsequent flight, but the agent told me that’s definitely not what happened. I also thought it was possible that I got A37 last night and just confused it for A17, but I think if I had noticed A17, I definitely would have noticed A37 (I haven’t had a number that high booking more than 36 hours out in many years). Another Southwest computer glitch? Weird.
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Bravo. I think this is it. I’m not entirely sure that I have taken five RR points flights this year (I usually use up whatever funds/vouchers I have first specifically for earnings purposes), and the odd number specifically is throwing me off, but I bet if I go back and review my flights this will be confirmed (curious what SWA says, too). Thanks again.
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So this one stumped the SWA call center and the “specialist” there today. At their advisement I have an email out to the airline to try to find this out, but I figured I would ask the experts first: you guys.
(I’ve mentioned in a previous thread the uphill slog it is to qualify for Companion Pass only in the air this year, so I spend a lot of time [relatively!] tracking my progress.)
To qualify for 2024 A-List Preferred, I have 48 of 50 flights (although I already qualified via points amount last month). To qualify for 2024 Companion Pass however, I have 43 of 100 flights. What gives?
I of course understand that Rapid Rewards reward flights don’t count. My working theory is this: Non-revenue flights also don’t count. There have been some flights here in 2023 (I don’t have an exact count to prove my theory here, alas, but I believe it is less than five segments) that were purchased with travel funds I had. SWA is thus somehow counting these as “non-revenue.”
Is that possible? If so, why? These were funds that had been used to purchase other travel I had needed to cancel. Revenue is revenue. Right?
Plus, what about vouchers? I’m pretty sure I applied a couple hundred dollars here and there via vouchers. If you use a voucher to cover ANY amount of a flight cost does that make it non-rev? Yikes.
And on top of all that, why would non-revenue count for A-List but not Companion Pass? Is this another systemic computer crock-up?
Are these theories completely off? Is it something else? Sound off, experts! (And thank you!)
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That email is automatically generated; I think it just means it hasn’t shown up in the Alabama system, and it may well not: have all those SRQ leads confirmed they don’t have it? I would be a bit of a squeaky wheel and try one more time with SRQ SWA. It almost certainly passed through the hands of one of the gate agents there and there aren’t a ton of those there I presume.
Good luck. I’ve definitely been there.
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FWIW, outside of this weird and kinda funny technical issue, I think SWA has done a tremendous job on its IFE library the last several years. There’s almost as much selection now as on my transatlantic flights.
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My wife and I often text each other on the plane sitting right next to each other about things we wouldn’t say aloud (no, nothing spicy—usually kvetching about the person in the row with us).
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The rare times I have been diverted, we never even went to a gate. I would be shocked if they pulled up to a gate just to drop people with carry-on luggage off, but who knows?! Doesn’t hurt to ask I guess.
I can see how that would be wildly frustrating if you are indeed going to end up where you were diverted to. Thirty-plus years ago, on a completely different airline, I was on a London to Miami flight that had to divert to Orlando due to weather. Half the plane were English tourists going to Disney and they were very upset that they couldn’t just get off there, the kicker being that with the diversion they were almost certainly going to miss their connecting flight back up to the very airport whose tarmac we were sitting on.
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I still haven’t gotten Freedom One! (Though I sometimes feel like Colorado One is my own personal jet.) Yeah, if she has the jacks though I can’t wait to ride on this beauty first.
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05-01-2023
06:30 PM
05-01-2023
06:30 PM
That is not the worst idea, but my plan was to just wait and see where I stand around Thanksgiving, and if it is a matter of just grabbing a segment or two (which, if it comes to that, I think will be the case, though I also don’t think it will actually come to that), booking the cheapest one-day round-trip I can in those slow early December weeks with the one or two vouchers I seem to collect every year as just a fact of volume.
Again though, that’s just whackadoodle to me. I’ve done basically 17 1/2 round trips so far this year. There’s only been 18 weeks so far this year! If a weekly flyer has to sweat out getting their top-tier, then Southwest needs to fix its frequent FLYER program.
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Sometimes I feel like I landed in Provo and am walking to Salt Lake at SLC.
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04-29-2023
08:43 PM
04-29-2023
08:43 PM
I think I’m likely to earn it off segments this year for my first time ever.
That’s part of why I’m vexed—it almost seems like the points have decreased in value? But I have seen nothing online or anywhere that indicates such.
Occam’s Razor says I’m just a few segments behind what I normally fly by the first third of the year, on shorter/cheaper flights, with a higher qualifying benchmark.
And yet! Heh, thanks all.
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(FWIW, these are almost entirely WGA fares as I work for a non-profit, but they always have been these years.)
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I feel like I’m going nuts.
Since I became a “road dog” for the organization I work for in 2016, I’ve qualified for Companion Pass in the air and in the air only (I don’t have/use a SWA credit card) every year. Earliest was in April in 2017 and 2019, latest was October in 2020 and last year.
I’m way behind this year despite my flying not appreciably decreasing (although I am indeed a few flights less than normal), currently sitting at 47,500 in Companion Pass qualifying points for the year and 35 qualifying flights. Nothing wild (I know a lot of people here in Texas commute on it daily, for instance) but a fair bit of traveling.
I should still qualify at my current pace, but still: gonna be cutting it closer than I’d like. Probably December.
I know the benchmarks have increased through the years. And I know not every flight is created equal, but I’ve had a few work flights to SJU and PVR and BZN which would pad my points more than, say, TUL or MSY (I’m DAL-based).
Something just seems…off. But I keep doing the math and it seems like everything checks out. But still—off pace.
Again, I’m not SWA’s biggest of customers, but this is still a lot of flying with them—seems crazy to me I need to be eyeballing possible mileage runs around the holidays.
Is Companion Pass mostly a credit card perk now? Southwest is still primarily an airline, right?
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I was chatting with an FA about it and she said it’s the same in Belize. I’m used to “the bus” and fine with it at, like, Madrid with assigned seating, but ooof, does not work when you have created a numerical system that you ask pax to pay for in the short or long term. I don’t recall this at PVR in the past.
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My first time flying SWA out of Vallarta in about five years, down here for work.
I’m A16, as per 98% of the time, and I roll up to the gate about ten minutes before scheduled boarding and well, they are already scanning and loading people, for about 5-10 minutes it turns out.
Worse, turns out they are loading folks on to buses. I’m first on the second bus. (That doesn’t matter one whit of course.)
They pack the bus (strollers, the whole nine) and we drive about 45 seconds, no joke. The doors open and a mad crush and rush to what turns out to be two stairs.
So of course I lose the last exit row seat (a miracle any were left) to a 5’2 person about 40 places behind where I scanned because she beat me off the bus and from the other direction.
OK, stuff happens—as I have said to others here, you have no guarantee whatsoever of your favored seat on SWA even if A1, even if the first preboard.
And I’m just A16, on a simple WGA fare, haha, I didn’t pay extra $$ for Biz Select or Early Bird (though I would argue my status is earned through plenty of revenue).
But come on, SWA: pony up for a real gate. Tarmac boarding doesn’t work for your system.
(And yes, I already reached out to them directly: this is just a vent and or a warning to my fellow SWA frequenters.)
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04-13-2023
03:01 PM
04-13-2023
03:01 PM
Funny—my kinda thread. In my experience/perception, the 800s do bump about more, relatively speaking. I presumed (on top of the presumption that is at all true) it’s because they are built of lighter materials.
The trade-off comfort-wise is they are much quieter, headrests, more exit rows/space etc etc
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04-03-2023
02:13 PM
04-03-2023
02:13 PM
It’s been fine for me lately. Who knows.
About a month ago there was a week where it didn’t work whatever kind of bird I was on and wherever in the country I was flying.
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I don’t dislike you like some here do, haha, I grew up a Florida Guy myself and at best I find your schticks funny (I have yet to hear this popular song but I keep my ears peeled) and your positions based in some hard reality, at worst, well…nevermind, but you are just being wrong here. This is a seat on an airplane. At longest, four hours of real estate. Usually on SWA, 1-2 hours. You will survive sitting in what is not your chosen seat—maybe a few inches less leg room, maybe a row or two back—for that time. Get over it. And trust me, no one on the bird finds you any more sympathetic than the person saving a seat when you argue about it and create a scene: you are equally or worse a donkey hole.
(I definitely agree if someone is saving more than one seat they are on thin ice and it is fair game however.)
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Needless aggressive behavior like this is 10x worse than someone saving one seat.
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03-14-2023
11:59 AM
I’m A16 99% of the time and this doesn’t bother me at all because preboards can’t sit in the exit row, my preference. Of course, those exit row seats are also occasionally gone by the time I get on-board by the Biz Select folks, but oh well, I still always get an aisle or window (whatever I feel like that day) up front, which would’ve been pretty unlikely with a last-minute-ish booking on other airlines.
I mean, it is what it is. There is always zero guarantee you will get your absolute singular preferred seat or row anywhere, even when booking with airlines with assigned seating. I’m at peace with it as a Wanna Get Away frequent flier.
THAT ALL SAID, you’ve definitely a right to get cheesed as a Biz Select payer. It is indeed a total farce sometimes.
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@Angie55 wrote:
I contacted SW and was informed that their deadline for reporting missing/lost items is within 4 hours after off-boarding.
This is news to me; I’ve definitely reported lost items well after that. (One couldn’t often be expected to open one’s luggage within four hours besides.)
Good luck, sorry to hear this.
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I’ve had an open case number with Southwest for about a month now with a very similar issue. My flown points have not been properly deposited. I noticed in early February the levels were not what they should be so I crunched the numbers and called the airline and the employee was like, “Hmmm. Yeah. We’re gonna look into this.” I honestly don’t know why it hasn’t been resolved yet but I’m giving them another week or so given this is an issue that affects 2024 status, but still: frustrating and concerning.
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02-18-2023
05:14 AM
02-18-2023
05:14 AM
I’ve always strangely found the WiFi spottier on the 800s than the 700s—whether that’s just anecdotal or has something behind it, no idea.
i feel pretty respected/understood as a frequent business traveler by SWA (although I am not a BIG IMPORTANT GUY—I only fly about four to ten hours a week and make significantly less than $300 an hour); it’s why the status exists and why the family boarding got pushed back years ago.
I’d like to know who has the really good, consistent, strong WiFi. In my experience, they most all aren’t impressive, domestic nor international.
i’ve occasionally been annoyed by the WiFi but I’ve been able to get emails out no issue, usually tap into my organization’s system, and occasionally attend a Zoom (sorry, I know that’s a no-no). When I am working up there, at worst I do it offline and connect-send/save at the end. I most usually take the time to rest though—maybe like the WiFi, you could (should) work less?
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