Did you know this about Southwest?

[BridgeBuilder]

Can anyone tell me what determines when you are assigned to board? How do you get priority boarding? On several trips I was separated from my kids. They can not board early because they are teenagers now.

There's a few ways. The higher ticket tiers allow for priority boarding. Then there's also early bird check in. Your boarding group and number is based on how early you check in.

 

[hsmamato2]

check in at 24 hours ahead of your trip for a boarding pass with group letter (a,b,c) and number attached. The earlier you check in, the earlier you board. Pay 15.00 and get even earlier checkin that they do for you... I've never been separated, but also never got lower than a 'b' pass either.

 

[cdrn1]

Maybe that was the difference for me. I rebooked (I didn't cancel) my 'wanna get away' fare for the lower fare and they refunded the balance.

There is a button at the bottom of the page (I forget where I found it) that lets you change to the lower fare with one click! I was very pleased to find that the last time I wanted to take advantage of a fare decrease. So much easier than cancelling and rebooking!

 

[debknight]

yeah...OP if you got a refund on your cc you did get lucky! Just for note though b/c fares change all the time, it was a glitch,not normal procedure.... usually it's a credit to be used as noted above so YMMV

As noted in a previous post, if the change was made within 24hr. of purchase you would be able to get a refund.

 

[Narnia_girl]

Anyone have insight into how Wanna Getaway fares are released?
I'm in the midwest and St. Louis would be my closest airport. For the dates (Dec.27-Jan.2) I need there are no Wanna Getaway fares to Orlando from St. Louis or Kansas City. They are available from Chicago, however. I'm wondering (hoping) that they will release WG fares at some point?

 

[cats mom]

Re-booking the same route for a lower price is not supposed to result in a cash refund for Wanna Get Away fares. The exception occurred just following the massive computer glitch that happened late last month. Southwest briefly allowed passengers who were caught up in that mess to obtain refunds when re-booking.

You can get a refund on Wanna Get Away fares if you re-book within 24 hours, not sure if that's what happened with the above posters or not.

Yes, it was so nice of SW to allow a refund when DD's flight was cancelled approx 5 hrs before scheduled takeoff due to the computer glitch. I used that $225 SW refund to put toward the $500 I paid for a last minute Delta flight. Ugh!

One thing to be aware of when using SW is that they're a lone wolf, so no agreements with other airlines should you need to get somewhere by a specific day/time and they're unable to accommodate you on one of their flights.

The next available SW flight would have arrived after the conference DD was flying to attend was completely over, and that's with me being willing to drive to any one of 6 different airports. Would another airline have been able to utilize a partner agreement to get her there sooner? Maybe, maybe not, but there were flights available, so at least that would have been an option.

Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of SW's policies and procedures, and I'll continue to use them for some things, but they have their downfalls.

 

[KKB]

You are given a boarding number when you check in. If you pay for early checking, SWA will do this for you at the 24 hour mark & alert you to your boarding number. If you do not, you want to checkin 24 hours prior to your flight (EXACTLY) to get the best seating order. If you booked the family together, you will get consecutive numbers so sitting together is not a problem. If you made separate bookings, you will want to be on several devices to check everyone in. Sometimes I book DH & I separate (maybe I have points and I have to pay for him with cash). I will have one typed in on my phone, and another on my iPad or laptop a few minutes prior to the checkin time. When the 24 hour prior minute clicks, I click checkin on both...we are never more than 5 spots apart. Whoever has the better spot usually just hangs back with whoever has the not as good spot.
If you checkin EXACTLY 24 hours early you will usually get pretty decent seat selection.

 

[DebbieB]

You are given a boarding number when you check in. If you pay for early checking, SWA will do this for you at the 24 hour mark & alert you to your boarding number. If you do not, you want to checkin 24 hours prior to your flight (EXACTLY) to get the best seating order. If you booked the family together, you will get consecutive numbers so sitting together is not a problem. If you made separate bookings, you will want to be on several devices to check everyone in. Sometimes I book DH & I separate (maybe I have points and I have to pay for him with cash). I will have one typed in on my phone, and another on my iPad or laptop a few minutes prior to the checkin time. When the 24 hour prior minute clicks, I click checkin on both...we are never more than 5 spots apart. Whoever has the better spot usually just hangs back with whoever has the not as good spot.
If you checkin EXACTLY 24 hours early you will usually get pretty decent seat selection.

Early bird is checked in at 36 hours but you can't print the boarding pass until 24 hours. I did early bird on my last trip and got A26 to FL and A27 on the return. My prior trip I checked in at exactly 24 hours and got B26, which put me in the back of the plane due to the large number of family boarders and seat savers.

 

[stitchlovestink]

Cash refunds are only given for certain types of tickets. Wanna Get Away fares are not eligible for cash refunds. If you find a lower fare, you will be issued ticketless travel funds that can be applied to your next trip. But there's a catch...the TTFs are non-transferable and they expire one year from the date that travel was originally booked (i.e. if you booked your current trip on Aug. 5, 2016, the TTFs will expire on Aug. 5, 2017). That means that travel using those funds must be completed by the expiration date.

If you booked using RR points, the points are returned to your RR account with no restrictions on those points.

And understand when you redeem TTF anything you add to it, it will ALL expire on the first date.
For example you buy a ticket for $150 on Aug 1st. On Aug 5th, prices drop and you get a credit of $50 in the form of a TTF voucher (which will expire on 8/1/17). On March 1st 2017, you buy your next ticket for $100 and you use your $50 TTF voucher and pay the other $50 by credit card. After your 24hr window is up, the $50 you paid by CC now expires the same time as your $50 TTF (8/1/17). So if you have to reschedule that flight, you won't get two separate vouchers with 2 different dates even though they were 2 different forms of payment. You will only get 1 new TTF voucher and it will be for the oldest (or closest) date. So now in the event you reschedule, you would have a $100 TTF voucher that would expire on 8/1/17...and you have to FLY by that date, not book the new ticket.
Hope this makes sense!!

 

[Betsy82]

Southwest has had a glitch in their system lately giving Wanna Get Away fares refundable status. They are honoring the glitch but I don't think it's always automatic.

I have two flights booked with them, both are Wanna Get Away. Both had price drops recently. One drop was refunded back to my card and the other is being held for a future flight.

Love Southwest! Love that they are honoring the glitch even when they didn't have to.

 

[Marionnette]

Anyone have insight into how Wanna Getaway fares are released?
I'm in the midwest and St. Louis would be my closest airport. For the dates (Dec.27-Jan.2) I need there are no Wanna Getaway fares to Orlando from St. Louis or Kansas City. They are available from Chicago, however. I'm wondering (hoping) that they will release WG fares at some point?

There's no telling whether SWA will add more WGA fares to your routes for those dates. You're traveling during a peak period and if there were WGA fares for those dates on your route, they have probably sold out. If your dates are set in stone and you absolutely want to fly SWA out of your home airport, then book the Anytime fares and when/if a lower price comes out, you will get a full refund of the difference. Playing the waiting game when you're traveling over holiday periods may not work to your advantage.

ETA: You could also book the WGA fares out of Chicago if the airport works for you and then change to StL or KC if a comparable WGA fare does become available. There are no change fees and you would only pay the difference in price.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

.....

One thing to be aware of when using SW is that they're a lone wolf, so no agreements with other airlines should you need to get somewhere by a specific day/time and they're unable to accommodate you on one of their flights......

Southwest has no interline agreements.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Anyone have insight into how Wanna Getaway fares are released?
I'm in the midwest and St. Louis would be my closest airport. For the dates (Dec.27-Jan.2) I need there are no Wanna Getaway fares to Orlando from St. Louis or Kansas City. They are available from Chicago, however. I'm wondering (hoping) that they will release WG fares at some point?

They don't normally re-open WGA but you could always keep checking:

I did a quick search for KCI to MCO on Dec 27th and here's what popped up for 1 passenger.



Here's an explanation for Sold out vs unavailable:

I didn't copy the return date of Jan 2, 2017 but only 4 flights were available with WGA fares from MCO to KCI on Jan 2.

 

[Lauren_jka]

Did southwest cancel the 2 free bags?

 

[BridgeBuilder]

Did southwest cancel the 2 free bags?

No, first 2 checked bags still fly free.

 

[daughtersrus]

It's from the date of purchase

Or, if you used a voucher to purchase the tickets, it's from the date that the voucher was originally issued.

 

[daughtersrus]

Can anyone tell me what determines when you are assigned to board? How do you get priority boarding? On several trips I was separated from my kids. They can not board early because they are teenagers now.

You have to get your boarding pass online 24 hours before the flight. If you want to do that earlier, you have to pay a fee per ticket, not per reservation. The day of the flight, you can go to the counter at the gate and pay a fee for A boarding if they have any left. When we left LAX on Saturdays, that fee was $40 per ticket."A List Members" fly enough to qualify for that benefit without fees.

 

[disneedee]

if you get the fare redudes, and they say the credit will be attached to that confirmation number, is there anywhere on line to see the credit amount?
i had a fare reduced in june and again yesterday. but don't know if the amount they gave me includes both reductions or just the last one?

 

[CMNJ]

The only way I know is to pretend you are booking a flight online-when you get to the payment step don't put in your credit card but put in the confirmation # for the credit and it will show how much the flight prices was reduced-then close the window (your credit won't be used since you never finished booking the flight)

 

[daughtersrus]

You are given a boarding number when you check in. If you pay for early checking, SWA will do this for you at the 24 hour mark & alert you to your boarding number. If you do not, you want to checkin 24 hours prior to your flight (EXACTLY) to get the best seating order. If you booked the family together, you will get consecutive numbers so sitting together is not a problem. If you made separate bookings, you will want to be on several devices to check everyone in. Sometimes I book DH & I separate (maybe I have points and I have to pay for him with cash). I will have one typed in on my phone, and another on my iPad or laptop a few minutes prior to the checkin time. When the 24 hour prior minute clicks, I click checkin on both...we are never more than 5 spots apart. Whoever has the better spot usually just hangs back with whoever has the not as good spot.
If you checkin EXACTLY 24 hours early you will usually get pretty decent seat selection.

I just wanted to point out that this is not always true. We just flew to/from Chicago to DL last week. DH DD#3 and I are able to pre-board due to DD's disability. We had boarding pass B 22-27 for the 6 of us in the reservation. There were only single seats available when it got to this section to board so the other 3 in our family were unable to sit next to each other.

On our return trip, we got boarding pass # B24-26, B28 and B31 although all tickets were on the same reservation. On this fight., the other 3 were able to find 2 seats together and one across the aisle when it came time to board.