Since recently moving to Texas (Dallas area) I have enjoyed flying SWA almost exclusively. Unfortunately on my last flight I ran headlong into the SWA no change fee. I booked online at a discounted price (not as cheap as competition but worth it to fly SWA) and when my business meeting ended early I decided to try to fly standby on an earlier flight. OOPS the no change fee came to $158. In order to fly standby you must buy a full fare walk up ticket. So the "no change fees" is a lesson in semantics as it is still expensive to change to an earlier flight (or even fly standby) on the day of the flight. I do get it that SWA does not have a specific charge called "change fee" however in many situations the result is the same, you pay a lot more to get on an earlier flight. I still like SWA but I will no longer fly them exclusively without consideration to other options on competing airlines. It will depend on whether there is any likely hood I could need to get on an earlier flight, short notice.
SWA - Reconsider your "no standby without exorbitant up charges" policy. Either increase fares a little or charge a reasonable ($10-$20) standby fee. I would like to again be confident that SWA is the best alternative. I would again like to be able to trust that even though SWA is not always the "cheapest" fare, they are always a reasonable fare and provide the very best customer service.
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