Did I lose my EBCI spot?

[mi*vida*loca]

so I've read that the earlier you buy EBCI the better because it goes in order of purchase.

Now my flights were originally for Baltimore to MCO. Flights were cheaper and that airport is 1.5 hours away. Flights went down for Philadelphia so we switched out flights.

I originally bought my Baltimore flights in May with EBCI. I just changed our flights to Philly two weeks ago and EBCI stayed with the flights. We fly next week.

Will it still go as I purchased EBCI in May or as two weeks ago? My flights out of philly look about completely booked. I can go in and get a seat for 1-2 but shows unavailable for 3+.

 

[sam_gordon]

I am not an expert, but did you do this as a "change" or a "cancel and rebook"? I *THINK* with a change, your EBCI placement stays, but with a cancel and rebook, not so much.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I am not an expert, but did you do this as a "change" or a "cancel and rebook"? I *THINK* with a change, your EBCI placement stays, but with a cancel and rebook, not so much.

I think they cancelled us and rebooked since it was different airports. And they had to split my reservation. I have the same reservation number but my kids have a different reservation number.

 

[CherylA]

I think they cancelled us and rebooked since it was different airports. And they had to split my reservation. I have the same reservation number but my kids have a different reservation number.

Are you sure you even still have early bird boarding associated with your flight? When I've cancelled and rebooked not only did I lose my spot for my early bird but I lost the early bird entirely. If your confirmation # changed, I'll bet that unless you paid for early bird a second time, you don't have it.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Are you sure you even still have early bird boarding associated with your flight? When I've cancelled and rebooked not only did I lose my spot for my early bird but I lost the early bird entirely. If your confirmation # changed, I'll bet that unless you paid for early bird a second time, you don't have it.

The agent confirmed that my EBCI did stay with the flight. It's on my confirmation email also. And when I pull up my account on SW its on all of the flights.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Here's my email

ETA: I just tried to repurchase it but it won't allow me because I already have it.

I got a bit worried there.

 

[ibob52]

My experience is *I still got a good EBCI Boarding number* ... even though I changed my flight.

 

[LisaS]

If you cancel and rebook online you lose your EBCI because EBCI is tied to your reservation confirmation number and that number changes with an online cancel and rebook. You must use the "change fight" option if you change the flight yourself in order to keep your EBCI. If you have a Southwest CSR change your flight, they have powers to do things we cannot do ourselves online and are able to maintain your EBCI even with a cancel and rebook.

Re: whether your place in the EBCI queue is affected, some people have had this happen. The best data point we have is a situation reported here where two couples traveling together purchased tickets plus EBCI for the same flight on the same day. When prices dropped, one couple changed their flights to get the lower price, the other couple did not. On flight day, the couple who did not change their flights had much better boarding positions than the couple who did. So it's possible that when you change your flight, the EBCI purchase date gets updated to the date the change was made.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

If you cancel and rebook online you lose your EBCI because EBCI is tied to your reservation confirmation number and that number changes with an online cancel and rebook. You must use the "change fight" option if you change the flight yourself in order to keep your EBCI. If you have a Southwest CSR change your flight, they have powers to do things we cannot do ourselves online and are able to maintain your EBCI even with a cancel and rebook.

Re: whether your place in the EBCI queue is affected, some people have had this happen. The best data point we have is a situation reported here where two couples traveling together purchased tickets plus EBCI for the same flight on the same day. When prices dropped, one couple changed their flights to get the lower price, the other couple did not. On flight day, the couple who did not change their flights had much better boarding positions than the couple who did. So it's possible that when you change your flight, the EBCI purchase date gets updated to the date the change was made.

When flights dropped through Philly it wouldn't let me use the "change flight" option. I had to call in and have everything moved. I couldn't do it online.

The agent told me she was changing them and EBCI would stay with my flight. She had to cancel my kids and put them on a different confirmation # because I had too many credits to apply. She said she had to split it up to apply them. And with her doing this our flights were $40 cheaper than the kids flights so we saved even more that way!

I just called SW because this thread had me worried. The agent told me I had EBCI for all 4 people going both ways.

Thanks for the info! If we have crappy EBCI we will survive. We don't mind sitting in the back of the plane. We would just like to split in two and each sit next to one of the kids.

 

[CherylA]

If you cancel and rebook online you lose your EBCI because EBCI is tied to your reservation confirmation number and that number changes with an online cancel and rebook. You must use the "change fight" option if you change the flight yourself in order to keep your EBCI. If you have a Southwest CSR change your flight, they have powers to do things we cannot do ourselves online and are able to maintain your EBCI even with a cancel and rebook.

Re: whether your place in the EBCI queue is affected, some people have had this happen. The best data point we have is a situation reported here where two couples traveling together purchased tickets plus EBCI for the same flight on the same day. When prices dropped, one couple changed their flights to get the lower price, the other couple did not. On flight day, the couple who did not change their flights had much better boarding positions than the couple who did. So it's possible that when you change your flight, the EBCI purchase date gets updated to the date the change was made.

That makes sense, I may rebook my flights then because mine went down but I didn't want to repay for the EBCI. Previously I had cancelled and rebooked and lost my EBCI. Thanks for the info.

 

[LisaS]

When flights dropped through Philly it wouldn't let me use the "change flight" option. I had to call in and have everything moved. I couldn't do it online.

The agent told me she was changing them and EBCI would stay with my flight. She had to cancel my kids and put them on a different confirmation # because I had too many credits to apply. She said she had to split it up to apply them. And with her doing this our flights were $40 cheaper than the kids flights so we saved even more that way!

I just called SW because this thread had me worried. The agent told me I had EBCI for all 4 people going both ways.

Thanks for the info! If we have crappy EBCI we will survive. We don't mind sitting in the back of the plane. We would just like to split in two and each sit next to one of the kids.

Sorry if I caused confusion. I was attempting to confirm what you posted, that if you cannot use the "change flight" option because your situation requires a cancel and rebook and you have EBCI, you need to call Southwest (as you did) and have them do it. They can keep EBCI intact even if a cancel and rebook is required. Doing a cancel and rebook yourself online would result in the loss of EBCI because only the "change flight" option will keep your EBCI intact if you are making changes to your reservation online.

I had to do this a few months ago. I needed to do a cancel/rebook to fix an issue with our reservation. I couldn't use the "change flight" option in this case. So I called Southwest and the customer service rep was able to do a cancel and rebook and keep my EBCI. Actually, they refunded my EBCI and had me purchase it again which isn't the same as "keeping" EBCI because it changed my EBCI purchase date, definitely putting me further back in the EBCI queue. And the refund for the initial EBCI purchase never did come through so I had to call again to get the money refunded to my credit card. I think I got an inexperienced rep because others have done this without having to get a refund and then repurchase EBCI.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We fly out tomorrow and I just printed our boarding passes. I got A30-34 for the 4 of us! I was surprised they were all back to back considering we are on 2 different confirmation/reservation numbers.

We are happy with this.

 

[n2mm]

That's great news. I'm such a newbie when it comes to SW so I follow all this info. We have a dca flight with SW in November and I just saw it dropped. Thought of doing the change, but so afraid I'll lose my EB spot. It's only $15 per person, so will have to think about. Have fun.

 

[LisaS]

We fly out tomorrow and I just printed our boarding passes. I got A30-34 for the 4 of us! I was surprised they were all back to back considering we are on 2 different confirmation/reservation numbers.

We are happy with this.

So glad everything worked out well for you. Have a great trip!!

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

One bit of advice; in the future if you have to split a PNR, put one child and one adult on each, not adults on one and children on another. This can cause problems if there is an issue with your flight (overbooked, cancelled, etc.).

 

[CherylA]

That's great news. I'm such a newbie when it comes to SW so I follow all this info. We have a dca flight with SW in November and I just saw it dropped. Thought of doing the change, but so afraid I'll lose my EB spot. It's only $15 per person, so will have to think about. Have fun.

IT should be noted that when you rebook at the lower rate you get a travel voucher for the amount for future travel and that voucher needs to be used within a year of the original purchase date and it needs to be used on a ticket in the name of the person who the original ticket was in the name of. Also I think you can only apply two credits, at least if you book online. So for a $15 credit especially if you don't fly Southwest a lot, it might not be worth your time.

 

[ninafeliz]

Sorry, jumping into this thread because I am on hold with SW to ask essentially this question. if I understand correctly, if I use the change option online I will keep my EBCI intact (this is what I was about to do until I thought of the EBCI issue that we paid for a couple of months ago when we bought the tickets). But now I have another question. We will only be saving about $27 per ticket, but with 4 of us I was going to go ahead and make the change because it ends up being over $100 total. But with only being able to use 2 credits at a time - is that per person or per purchase? Will I be able to use the $27 credit on each of our tickets on our next WDW trip to save ~$100 total, or only 2 of them on only 2 of the 4 of us, for only $50 saved and have to use the other 2 later (we don't fly tons, so might not be worth it at that point). ?

 

[CherylA]

Sorry, jumping into this thread because I am on hold with SW to ask essentially this question. if I understand correctly, if I use the change option online I will keep my EBCI intact (this is what I was about to do until I thought of the EBCI issue that we paid for a couple of months ago when we bought the tickets). But now I have another question. We will only be saving about $27 per ticket, but with 4 of us I was going to go ahead and make the change because it ends up being over $100 total. But with only being able to use 2 credits at a time - is that per person or per purchase? Will I be able to use the $27 credit on each of our tickets on our next WDW trip to save ~$100 total, or only 2 of them on only 2 of the 4 of us, for only $50 saved and have to use the other 2 later (we don't fly tons, so might not be worth it at that point). ?

Not sure if you got the answer to this question when you talked to the agent but you will be able to save the full 100+. You are limited on the # of vouchers you can use on each ticket. The problem comes in if your flight comes down a little at a time, I've rebooked a flight 3 times saving 5 or 9 dollars each time and then found out that I could only apply 2 of those credits to each person and the name on the credit had to match the name on the new ticket to use it. There may be a limit to how many you can use per transaction also, I'm not sure about that but if so you would just book the 4 of you on 2 different reservations. I actually usually book each of us as our own reservation because if there is one or two tickets available at the lower price you get that price instead of the higher price it bumps up to when you buy all 4.

 

[ninafeliz]

Not sure if you got the answer to this question when you talked to the agent but you will be able to save the full 100+. You are limited on the # of vouchers you can use on each ticket. The problem comes in if your flight comes down a little at a time, I've rebooked a flight 3 times saving 5 or 9 dollars each time and then found out that I could only apply 2 of those credits to each person and the name on the credit had to match the name on the new ticket to use it. There may be a limit to how many you can use per transaction also, I'm not sure about that but if so you would just book the 4 of you on 2 different reservations. I actually usually book each of us as our own reservation because if there is one or two tickets available at the lower price you get that price instead of the higher price it bumps up to when you buy all 4.

Thanks for replying. What I found out after talking to a very nice agent was that if I got a $27 refund off of all 4 tickets I could not use all of the credits in one reservation. In other words, I would have to make one reservation for 2 of us and a second reservation for 2 of us, and use 2 $27 credits for each reservation. She assured me that if I did both reservations one after the other our EBCI numbers would be very close together if not exactly together. I also found out that you can only pay with up to 4 different methods (credit, credit card, gift card, etc). We often buy gift cards when they are doubling fuel perks at a local grocery store, and they only go up to $500 each. So if we used 2 of the 4 with the credits from this flight and had to use a cc to make up the difference, we could only use one gift card. To make a long story (kind of) short, my DH and I discussed it and decided that it wasn't worth it to save $100 on a trip that is costing us thousands. I know money saved adds up, but my DH is paranoid about anything different related to flights and didn't want 2 different reservations and the possibility of 2 getting A boarding and 2 B boarding, or something similar. So I opted to just leave as is.

I forgot, she did say what everyone here said, that if I modify my flight the EBCI goes with us and we should have the same numbers as if we didn't modify. Now there's no way to ever confirm or check this, but that's what she said and she sounded confident.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Thanks for replying. What I found out after talking to a very nice agent was that if I got a $27 refund off of all 4 tickets I could not use all of the credits in one reservation. In other words, I would have to make one reservation for 2 of us and a second reservation for 2 of us, and use 2 $27 credits for each reservation. She assured me that if I did both reservations one after the other our EBCI numbers would be very close together if not exactly together. I also found out that you can only pay with up to 4 different methods (credit, credit card, gift card, etc). We often buy gift cards when they are doubling fuel perks at a local grocery store, and they only go up to $500 each. So if we used 2 of the 4 with the credits from this flight and had to use a cc to make up the difference, we could only use one gift card. To make a long story (kind of) short, my DH and I discussed it and decided that it wasn't worth it to save $100 on a trip that is costing us thousands. I know money saved adds up, but my DH is paranoid about anything different related to flights and didn't want 2 different reservations and the possibility of 2 getting A boarding and 2 B boarding, or something similar. So I opted to just leave as is.

I forgot, she did say what everyone here said, that if I modify my flight the EBCI goes with us and we should have the same numbers as if we didn't modify. Now there's no way to ever confirm or check this, but that's what she said and she sounded confident.

It really doesn't matter much if your EBCI check in numbers are consecutive or not. If it makes you feel better you could all board with the later boarding # which is still going to be better than everyone else who began checking in at T-24.
Our family of 4 belongs to Rapid Rewards. We have the SW visa and put everything on it for the SW points. We earn enough points that we all fly free to MCO at least once or twice per year, sometimes more.
Even if I have enough points to book all of us at once, when using RR points it automatically gives each of us our own confirmation #. So when we buy EBCI, our numbers are rarely consecutive. We still sit together. We almost always buy it because to try to check in manually with 3-4 confirmation numbers it's very time consuming and the last 2 entered would have much later boarding #'s.