Post all SW questions concerns, etc. here...

[EACarlson]

This is all so confusing! I had a flight in Oct I booked in April, flight was canceled they never let me know that it was canceled just happened to go on the web site and saw it was canceled. Note on flight said I can rebook 2 times up to 14 days before flight with no extra cost or cancel for full refund. I added another day to my vacation! Now I am wondering if that means I have to pay for baggage?!?!

Probably. When your flight was cancelled, did they rebook you onto another flight? If they did, that would have been an involuntary change and your bags would have still been free. Since you made a voluntary change and extended the trip, I believe you accepted the new terms and will be charged baggage fees.

 

[MarBee]

Was going to book flights on SW (haven’t flown them in over a year), and I was wondering how I get free bags for myself and family as a CC holder. Do I have to somehow link my CC to my RR account? Or is this a process where I pay for the bags with my CC, and then my card is refunded after the fact?

I should add that this is for July/August of this year, if that matters.

 

[Sparrow'sLady]

Was going to book flights on SW (haven’t flown them in over a year), and I was wondering how I get free bags for myself and family as a CC holder. Do I have to somehow link my CC to my RR account? Or is this a process where I pay for the bags with my CC, and then my card is refunded after the fact?

I should add that this is for July/August of this year, if that matters.

3 word Google Search: (Southwest Bag Policy)
https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/article/policy-changes

 

[EACarlson]

Was going to book flights on SW (haven’t flown them in over a year), and I was wondering how I get free bags for myself and family as a CC holder. Do I have to somehow link my CC to my RR account? Or is this a process where I pay for the bags with my CC, and then my card is refunded after the fact?

I should add that this is for July/August of this year, if that matters.

The current system is that SW now acts the same as every other major airline. The CC is noted in your profile, automatically, and the fee is waived.
The original statement when this was first announced was that SW was going to charge the card and they you'd get a credit for that amount. That is no longer the plan.

 

[Mle8308]

Question, currently, if you book a SW flight, you have to pay for EBCI and a bag if you want to check one? So, an additional $70 per person each way. Will be interesting to see how this will effect SW now that the 5/28 free bags deadline has passed. I know I won't, in all likelihood, be flying them with an additional charge of $140 per ticket RT if I want to board in A or B group and decide to check a bag. From my area, their flights were never a real bargain to begin with, they sometimes had better times and with the free bags, it was a good choice. But I have discovered other airlines have lower fees and not so bad flight times, too! I was a SW or JB person, now I am booking Delta, though JB is a contender. Still won't go near Spirit or Frontier.

 

[MarBee]

The current system is that SW now acts the same as every other major airline. The CC is noted in your profile, automatically, and the fee is waived.
The original statement when this was first announced was that SW was going to charge the card and they you'd get a credit for that amount. That is no longer the plan.

Thanks so much! The conflicting info out there is confusing to say the least. I have a good amount of points I want to use up ASAP but wanted to make sure I was going to be able to book the reservation properly to get the free checked bags.
Thanks again!

 

[MarBee]

Question, currently, if you book a SW flight, you have to pay for EBCI and a bag if you want to check one? So, an additional $70 per person each way. Will be interesting to see how this will affect SW now that the 5/28 free bags deadline has passed. I know I won't, in all likelihood, be flying them with an additional charge of $140 per ticket RT if I want to board in A or B group and decide to check a bag. From my area, their flights were never a real bargain to begin with, they sometimes had better times and with the free bags, it was a good choice. But I have discovered other airlines have lower fees and not so bad flight times, too! I was a SW or JB person, now I am booking Delta, though JB is a contender. Still won't go near Spirit or Frontier.

I miss the “good ole days” of SW with tons of flight options at super affordable fares with free bags. Sigh.
JB doesn’t offer much from my home airport, but I’ve been cautiously optimistic with flying frontier.

 

[kristenrice]

Question, currently, if you book a SW flight, you have to pay for EBCI and a bag if you want to check one? So, an additional $70 per person each way. Will be interesting to see how this will effect SW now that the 5/28 free bags deadline has passed. I know I won't, in all likelihood, be flying them with an additional charge of $140 per ticket RT if I want to board in A or B group and decide to check a bag. From my area, their flights were never a real bargain to begin with, they sometimes had better times and with the free bags, it was a good choice. But I have discovered other airlines have lower fees and not so bad flight times, too! I was a SW or JB person, now I am booking Delta, though JB is a contender. Still won't go near Spirit or Frontier.

I agree...

Sadly, our local airport has many options (DL, AA, UA, SW, Frontier, and Allegiant) but unfortunately, the competition still does nothing to keep the prices "reasonable" to MCO. Frontier is the only one with regular non-stop service to MCO and Allegiant goes to Sanford, but the prices are still over $250 R/T for their "bare-bones" fares. Southwest's latest release has more non-stop options for the first time in many years, but they are $400+ R/T for the basic WGA fare which includes no bags or EBCI. If you start comparing apples to apples and look at the one-stop options between SW, DL, AA, and UA, the prices are still $400+ and none of those include baggage. In my case, I need an aisle seat in the front half of the plane due to flight anxiety so I also need to factor in the cost of seat selection which adds another $50-$100 ticket, depending on the airline.

I have the SW Visa but I recently switched to the Capital One Venture card. Of course, that was just before SW announced their baggage fee policy change. I still have enough SW points to cover a one-way flight which always factors in to my choice in airlines. For my trip next year, I will probably be using SW to fly one way (on points) and another airline for the other leg (on Cap One points). It will all come down to the best price/schedule combination, which is how it should be. For the past 5-7 years, that has always been SWA....but I don't think that will be the case going forward.