Southwest Airlines Community

It's amazing to me when seemingly intelligent people can take a bag of crap and try to sell it as a desirable product. But that is precisely what your marketing department is doing with your so-called "improved" Rapid Rewards program. And judging from the comments here, I'm not alone is my disappointment. You've taken the best reward system in the industry and turned it into a complicated clone of the failing airlines' programs. I'm sure you hope that customers will buy into the new system because of the flowery adjectives you use to describe it. But we can do the math and we intensely dislike what we see. To boil things down to the simplest common denominator, a free round trip that used to take 16 flights will now require 20, with all factors being equal. And my inability to utilize unused funds for my clients' transportation is another bummer. I've been a diehard fan of Southwest Airlines as long as I've been flying, but that has changed. When my current credits and companion pass awards are gone I'll look elsewhere. And I'll soon be expressing my opinion on all this on my YouTube channel which gets 600K views a day. ... View more

I would prefer either advance purchase of the wi-fi or being able to use drink coupons in exchange for the service. My guess is that fewer than half of customers who get drink coupons ever use them, so that "perk" is a waste for a large percentage of your frequent fliers. ... View more

Here's MY game plan, Kevin... Wednesday I'll be flying what is likely to be my next-to-last paid flight on Southwest from Dallas to Los Angeles. (I have a round-trip ticket so I'll use it to come back.) In the meantime I'm going to make T-shirts that read "Bring Back the REAL Southwest Airlines" on one side and "I'm now a SECOND CLASS PASSENGER on Southwest -- I can't afford the new BUSINESS CLASS" on the back. I will wear these shirts as often as possible. I'm going to encourage your customers to write to SW executives and tell them what they think of the new policies. I might even print up business cards to hand out with Southwest's mailing address to make it easier for customers to reach you guys. I've already posted my thoughts on the "Business Week" website about what I think of the new policies. I'll be writing letters to the editors of newspapers in many of your major markets. (I'm a former editor of a daily newspaper.) Why? Because Southwest's decision-makers have totally lost touch with the average customer. I can't recall seeing anyone in a business suit on my last four or five flights. What you're doing targets the pocketbooks of your executives' peers, not the people who made your airline a success. Southwest WAS a lot like Apple. A better product. Intensely loyal customers. Loyalty that was built over years and years largely destroyed on a single day. ... View more

Hey, management folks -- read the handwriting on the wall. READ THE COMMENTS IN THIS BLOG. This will be the biggest PR disaster in the history of Southwest Airlines. You are alienating your most loyal customers. Flowery adjectives cannot sugar-coat a whole new system that basically devalues the non-business travelers who have made this airline a success. Kevin, I thank God I'm not you, having to try to "sell" this awful new system to your customers. "Exciting" isn't the word. "Frustrating" and "disappointing" and "ill-conceived" come close. Maybe someone needs to start an online petition to management to bring back the Southwest Airlines we once knew and LUVed? ... View more

Yesterday I received the email à ... View more