Hi there OBER7212, I'm a Customer Service Agent at Southwest and I can most likely shed light on your situation. EarlyBird will automatically assign boarding positions A16-whatever number it takes based on how many Customers qualify for EarlyBird. EarlyBird is complementary for A-List members who receive priority in the assignments. Then Customers who purchase EarlyBird are assigned postions. It is certainly possible to receive a B position with EarlyBird working as designed. This is more likely on long flights, flights to family oriented destinations, and flights on our larger -800 series aircraft where more Customers typically purchase EarlyBird. When checking in only a few hours before flight time, we start to see Customers receiving earlier boarding positions than some of the EarlyBird checkins because those positions are freed up when Customers take earlier flights, cancel their reservations, or are rerouted. The computer system just assigns the first available boarding position by default. So if you received A16, that would mean that the person who had A16 originally ended up taking a different flight and their position became available and was assigned to the next lucky person who checked in. In this case, that was you. I hope this helps.
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