Southwest Airlines Community

Many possible reasons.   A1-15 are reserved for Business Select flyers.   A-List Preferred and A-List members get the next assigned positions.   This is followed by those who bought EarlyBird Check-In. Because Southwest places no limit on the number of EBCIs they will sell per flight, people often get B (and sometimes even C) positions, even after paying the extra fee.   Then, after all of these people, are the positions available for those checking in at T-24.   Another factor would be if your flight is the continuing leg of a connecting flight. Connecting passengers can check in for both legs (including the flight you're on) when they check in at T-24 for their first flight -- meaning they are checking in before you.   If you need a specific seat or assistance boarding due to a disability, consider asking for a preboarding pass at the gate.   Alternately, you can pay $30 or $40 at the gate to upgrade to an open A1-15 position, if available.   ... View more

@Sweety_D wrote: Agree 100%. I am so tired of paying for a Business Select ticket just to watch 20 people with fake injuries take the first few rows! Stop allowing Pre-Boarders to sit in the first 3-5 rows! Southwest cannot. This has been well discussed.   The only "solution" is to move to assigned seating.     ... View more

As long as it meets the other qualifiers listed, yes. ... View more

Since you had a medical emergency, you may be granted a refund by supplying confirmation that you were unable to fly.   Lots of info on how to request a refund here:   https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/purchasing-and-refunds/refund-info-pol.html ... View more

What do you mean by "LUV ticket"?   Southwest uses electronic tickets -- all you need is your confirmation number in order to check in online and print a boarding pass. ... View more

The terms are spelled out at the bottom of the offer email.   Double Points: Only the Rapid Rewards® Member who received this email/offer from Southwest Airlines® is eligible for this promotion. Offer is nontransferable. To earn double points, Member must register for this promotion between June 19, 2017, and September 30, 2017, and book and complete travel between June 19, 2017, and September 30, 2017. The Customer must be registered for the promotion before travel occurs to qualify for double points. A qualifying one-way flight for this promotion is a one-way revenue flight on Southwest Airlines from an origin city to a destination city, including any intermediate stops and/or connections on Southwest Airlines. A qualifying round trip flight for this promotion is a revenue flight on Southwest Airlines from an origin city to a destination city and back to the originating airport or carrier-recognized co-terminal. Valid on new reservations booked within the promotional time period and flown after registration. Rapid Rewards account number must be entered at the time of booking. Rapid Rewards earned points are calculated using base fare. Member will receive 12 bonus points per dollar spent on Business Select® fares, ten bonus points per dollar on Anytime fares, and six bonus points per dollar on Wanna Get Away® fares. Bonus points are in addition to the standard flight points earned through Rapid Rewards. Bonus points will not count toward A-List, A-List Preferred, or Companion Pass qualification. Member will receive bonus points within fourteen days after completion of entire ticket. Companion Pass, charter flights, travel booked with points, group travel, and Southwest Vacations® packages do not qualify as one-way or round trip revenue flights for this promotion. Changes made to this itinerary after purchase may eliminate qualification for promotion. Challenge: Only the Rapid Rewards® Member who received this email/offer from Southwest Airlines® is eligible for this promotion. Offer is nontransferable. To earn promotional A-List status through December 31, 2017, Member must register for this promotion, book, and complete three qualifying round trip (or six one-way) revenue flights between June 19, 2017 and September 30, 2017. The Customer must register for this promotion before travel occurs for flights to qualify. To earn promotional A-List status through December 31, 2018, Member must register for this promotion, book, and complete five qualifying round trip (or ten one-way) revenue flights between June 19, 2017, and September 30, 2017. The Customer must register for this promotion before travel occurs for flights to qualify. A qualifying one-way flight for this promotion is a one-way revenue flight on Southwest Airlines from an origin city to a destination city, including any intermediate stops and/or connections on Southwest Airlines. A qualifying round trip flight for this promotion is a revenue flight on Southwest Airlines from an origin city to a destination city and back to the originating airport or carrier-recognized co-terminal. Valid on new reservations booked within the promotional time period and flown after registration. Rapid Rewards account number must be entered at the time of booking. Companion Pass, charter flights, travel booked with points, group travel, and Southwest Vacations® packages do not qualify as one-way or round trip revenue flights for this promotion. Changes made to any itinerary after purchase of a one-way or round trip revenue flight may eliminate qualification for this promotion. Upon qualifying for promotional A-List status through December 31, 2017, or December 31, 2018, you will receive an email verification. Please allow up to 15 business days after qualifying for promotional A-List status to receive your A-List card. If A-List status is earned by flying 25 qualifying one-way flights or earning 35,000 tier qualifying points in the calendar year while qualified for promotional A-List status through December 31, 2017, the regular A-List status qualifications will supersede the promotional A-List status, entitling the Member to A-List status through December 31, 2018. ... View more

@robinkneer wrote: Agreed!!  I fly weekly and love SWA, but the blatant abuse of the preboard system is frustrating.  Recently I was A-4 and got on board to find a "disabled" passenger saving rows 1-8.  The worse part was the flight attendants told us business travelers to just go to row 9 and be seated.  I was super annoyed.  When the plane arrived the "disabled" man sprinted off the plane with his large family.  Grrr.    Forgive me for being skeptical... but a single passenger was saving 48 seats? How is that even possible? That's 1/3rd of the plane. Being saved by one person. Seems... impossible.   Perhaps you're exaggerating. ... View more

It's actually an FAA rule, which applies to all carriers. If the child will be age 2 or older on the day of travel, they must have a paid ticket for their own seat. ... View more

@buckeyenut1964 wrote: I haven't received drink coupons for years.  I opted out of it at one time because I wasn't drinking and now I can't find out how to sign back up.  I fly Southwest a LOT but no coupons.  Some passengers have given me coupons on flights so I know they still exist but not for me.  They do give me a can of water whenever I ask so that's something anyway 🙂 To opt in, log into your account on the Southwest website. Click on My Account. Under My Preferences, click on Travel. The opt in option is under Extras.   ... View more

@TheMiddleSeat wrote: Also, not all points count towards CP. In general, "bonus points", typically earned from shopping, do not qualify for CP. You could also have a difference the other way, having more CP points than actual points if you redeemed some points so it's not uncommon for those two numbers to not match.  To be clear: All points earned from a shopping using a Southwest Rapid Rewards Visa qualify for Companion Pass, including any bonus points.   All base points earned from any other partner also count, but any bonus points earned from a partner other than the RR Visa Card do not. This would include bonus points from partners like Rapid Rewards Dining and Rapid Rewards Shopping. ... View more

The Companion Pass counter resets each calendar year. Were some of your points earned prior to this year? ... View more

@Lindar10 wrote: Hi, I'm trying to get a good deal on a flight for 12/28/17-1/4/18 and everything I read online says to do it 8-12 weeks out but when I look at the Southwest website the good prices for the Wanna Get Away deals are sold out. Will there be other deals coming up or am I just out of luck? I really want to travel Southwest but am thinking about going with another airline that has a decent price now because it looks like all SW deals are gone. The holidays are very busy times for air travel, so I wouldn't expect WGA fares to come back, although it is remotely possible.   In general, the "sweet spot" for Southwest fares during non-peak travel times is 8-10 weeks out. Fares are high when the schedule is first release, tend to drop at about 3 months out, and then get increasingly higher as departure approaches. (Doesn't apply to major holiday travel periods.)   That said, Southwest's revenue management system changes fare prices very frequently, so it pays to check often. Many of the adjustments seem to make no sense, and it's possible to find good fares last minute.   In your situation, you could book a refundable fare now and then cancel/rebook should a WGA fare show up later. (Actually, you would first book the new fare and then immediately cancel the refundable one, to ensure you get the WGA fare. And you'll want to never make any changes to the refundable fare since that would cause you to lose refundability.) You'd get a full refund of the refundable fare, although that can take some time and your cash would be tied up for a while.     ... View more

@DancingDavidE wrote: Earlier is better for Southwest.   If the trip did become lower priced after you purchased it, you can change your ticket to the lower fare although the extra money will be held in a voucher for Wanna Get Away fares.           Just to be clear: If the fare drops after booking, you can change/rebook to the lower fare and the difference will be held as Travel Funds (not a voucher) that can be applied to any new fare (not just Wanna Get Away) but only for the same passenger as originally booked. Those funds expire one year from the original date of purchase (all travel must be completed by then). ... View more

Theres no way to extend the expiration date on funds. Any time you apply them, in fact, all funds from that new reservation (including new money) take on the earliest expiring expiration date of any funds used.   Once expired, you may be able to recover some of the funds by contacting Customer Relations and requesting reissue as a voucher. The fee is $100, deducted from the funds balance. These requests are granted on a case-by-case basis.     ... View more

f you have a Rapid Rewards account and the number was applied at the time of booking, you should be abel to log in to the Southwest website and see your flight info under My Account > My Trips.   If not, you'll need to call: 1-800-I-FLY-SWA. ... View more

The 300s are scheduled to be retired by the end of the year. There are a few incoming used 700s that won't have wifi until they are sent out for installation, but once the 300s are gone your chances of having a wifi-enabled plane are very good. That's the good news. The bad news is that Southwest's wifi remains abysmal. ... View more

All you need to do is check in. "Print" allows you to print the BP at home. Ultimately, whatever you choose has no effect on your ability to print your boarding pass at the airport, should you want to do so later. ... View more

The FA was wrong. Southwest has no policy for or against seat saving. You can save a seat.   That said, if someone wants to take the seat you are saving, they can sit there.   It's a stupid situation, created by Southwest's non-policy policy. ... View more

@mmrcela wrote: So after reading this entire chain of events, it is shocking to see how Southwest, being a great airline to fly, could not answer this question correctly no matter how many times they tried. You CANNOT redeem points through a car rental transaction. You can ONLY purchase a gift card for one of the car rental places to be sent to an address and then used for a car rental purchase. If you wanted to do this and send it to yourself to be used you will have to do it atleast 1 week in advance of your purchase because this is how long it takes to receive the gift card. I really hope this helps everyone and shows SW how dumb they are in reading and writing. But I do love your company when flying. Peace. No. This is not true. You CAN book rental cars, using exactly the process that was posted above:   You must be logged in to the Southwest website for either the steps I posted earlier or the link franktravel posted to work.   Log in to the Southwest website, and under Rapid Rewards, click on More Rewards. Near the upper right hand corner, under Travel click on Rental Cars. That will load a page with many rental car company gift card options, but the very first link should be Book Travel Now.  Select that, then choose Car from the top menu.   ... View more

I know this is no consolation, but Southwest specifically says that fares aren't guaranteed until the purchase is final.   I find that this happens much more often on Southwest than it does on other carriers. People frequently post on forums and social media about trying to book a flight and the price increasing, sometimes multiple times, when attempting to complete the purchase.   The conversion to the new booking system seems to have made the issue worse. It's especially ironic, since it was suggested that the new booking system might alleviate this issue.   For what it's worth, you might want to consider making a consumer complaint to the US DOT:   https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint ... View more

@lukechinworth wrote: I was not seeing the option to get the mobile boarding pass from the southwest's web check-in page. BUT, I was able to get the mobile boarding pass after logging into the app with my rapid rewards account. I was even traveling with another person. Note: this only gave me my boarding passes, not my additional traveler's. They had to log into their own account on the app to get theirs. Were both of you on a single reservation / confirmation number? If so, this is a new development, as Southwest's website still says that mobile boarding passes are not available to those on multi-passenger itineraries.   ... View more

Points from partners can sometimes take a long time to post. If they don't post prior to your expiration date, your account will go dormant, and your existing points will be forfeited.   The quickest way to get points posted (other than travel) is to buy points -- those generally post very quickly, and they qualify as a "point earning activity" to keep your account active.     ... View more

@Haipham2017 wrote: @chgoflyer wrote: Seniors don't automatically get any preboarding benefit due to their age.   Preboarding is available for those disabled passengers who 1) have a specific seating need to accommodate their disability, or 2) need assistance in boarding the aircraft. Preboarding is also offered to those traveling with assistance and emotional support animals. If a passenger with a disability needs extra time to board, they are allowed to board with Family Boarding, between the “A” and “B” groups.  I thought they are allowed to board before A group? Seniors don't automatically get any preboarding benefit due to their age.   Preboarding is available for those disabled passengers who 1) have a specific seating need to accommodate their disability, or 2) need assistance in boarding the aircraft. Preboarding is also offered to those traveling with assistance and emotional support animals.   If a passenger with a disability needs extra time to board, they are allowed to board with Family Boarding, between the “A” and “B” groups.  ... View more