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

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

or if you can purchase with points.

That's true you can but it requires people to have the points in their accounts and how many people you're buying for can make that completely unfeasible. I think the devaluation of the earning on lower end fares plus the flights often costing more on average for people than they used to has made it hard for people with low balances to do that. You only earn 2pts with Basic so your build up to points painfully slow.

Like for me I only have just under 24,000 points in my account (because when I fly I've mostly been flying off using my husband's points and my earnings majority earned by using the Shopping portal for Petsmart) which is really hard to get much out of that. The flights to Vegas RT cost that back in August for 1 person. Although to be fair that was on Choice (previously WGA+)

 

[pens4821]

And today, the flight I was watching just dropped again to the lowest I have seen so far. So hard to know when to book now that flight credits expire 6-12 months from ticketing date.

This got me to thinking. Has anyone tried (or heard) extending the credit by booking a new flight and canceling it for a new flight credit date? I know you used to be able to do that when the flight credits expired in the past.

United has seemed to close the loophole. Some people say it still works from United, but last year I had one I kept trying to do that for and it would just keep the same confirmation number so it wouldn’t extend

 

[eticketplease]

If you have one of the Chase Transferable cards there is a 25% transfer bonus to SW.

 

[Dznypal]

I heard lately that SW is going to start boarding window seats first then the middle and last aisles
So now groups or couples won’t be able to board together
I can see how this would speed up boarding but if you have middle and aisle it’s going to be quite some time before your travel companion will be getting on

 

[Tink3815]

I heard lately that SW is going to start boarding window seats first then the middle and last aisles
So now groups or couples won’t be able to board together
I can see how this would speed up boarding but if you have middle and aisle it’s going to be quite some time before your travel companion will be getting on

how will this work with children

 

[Willow Ufgood]

I read that in addition to window->center->aisle boarding order, they will also seat from back to front. I can just imagine the complaints they're in for when the people who are seated in the back grab the first overhead spots near the front as they board. I understand that they're doing it for efficiency but how efficient will it be when those in the front are wandering to the back of the plane to stow their carry-ons? And then finally having to gate check their bags when nothing can be found?

It sounds good on paper but then you apply the human me-first factor, it's going to be a problem.

 

[The Mayor]

I read that in addition to window->center->aisle boarding order, they will also seat from back to front. I can just imagine the complaints they're in for when the people who are seated in the back grab the first overhead spots near the front as they board. I understand that they're doing it for efficiency but how efficient will it be when those in the front are wandering to the back of the plane to stow their carry-ons? And then finally having to gate check their bags when nothing can be found?

It sounds good on paper but then you apply the human me-first factor, it's going to be a problem.

I agree. It sounds like it's going to turn into a royal cluster F!!

 

[Tink3815]

I have heard Jet Blue boards back to front. Do they alllow you to drop your carryon in the fron of the plane?

 

[Simba's Mom]

I read that in addition to window->center->aisle boarding order, they will also seat from back to front. I can just imagine the complaints they're in for when the people who are seated in the back grab the first overhead spots near the front as they board. I understand that they're doing it for efficiency but how efficient will it be when those in the front are wandering to the back of the plane to stow their carry-ons? And then finally having to gate check their bags when nothing can be found?

It sounds good on paper but then you apply the human me-first factor, it's going to be a problem.

I hope that's not true-one reason I paid the maximum price was that I would not only get an aisle seat near the front, but I was told in the instructions that that would get me boarding near the beginning. If these plans are true, I wasn't told the truth.

 

[Dznypal]

We’ll I actually did some searching for a chat with SW and got a super agent who answered the question on boarding
She said there not going to board window etc
It’s going to be there assign boarding numbers according to fare class
So this way passengers can board with the traveling group
This makes a lot more sense
Like choice extra gets boarding spot 1-2 choice preferred 3-4 and so on
Hope this helps clear things up

 

[SirDuff]

A lot of airlines assign boarding group which is often done back-to-front (or just to back-to-front) but the first few boarding groups (or extra groups before the row-by-row boarding) are based on status and/or fare types. So, for example, I was flying Singapore Airlines yesterday and sitting in the first couple of rows of economy. I have pretty high status, so I was in the second boarding group (third if you include those needing to pre-board), but the other people in my row/nearby rows were boarding group five or six.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Honestly there's conflicting info on how boarding is going to work.

From back to front to WILMA being used. The WILMA seems a late addition to what had been understood about Boarding groups under the assigned seating rules and is not listed on their website (as of yet). The back to front is in direct conflict with how their boarding groups are listed on their website as of now.

And aside from what is listed on their website these newer things have not been really explained clearly at all.

Who else thinks they are throwing all but the kitchen sink into it all making an utter mess for how customers are supposed to understand their newer product. It's like a dart board up and they are just randomly throwing darts up there almost like they are like trying to take this and that from this airline and this and that from that airline and so on.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

A lot of airlines assign boarding group which is often done back-to-front (or just to back-to-front) but the first few boarding groups (or extra groups before the row-by-row boarding) are based on status and/or fare types. So, for example, I was flying Singapore Airlines yesterday and sitting in the first couple of rows of economy. I have pretty high status, so I was in the second boarding group (third if you include those needing to pre-board), but the other people in my row/nearby rows were boarding group five or six.

The most clear cut situation I have been in which was back to front was Zipair which only has two classes of seats: standard and lay flat.

Our flight from San Jose to Narita, Japan was done back to front in which the gate agents held up signs with groups of rows starting at the back of the plane. Although it was still groups of rows rather than row by row it was still small enough row groups together starting with the very last rows of the plane. This meant us, as lay flat seats at the front of the plane, boarded last. However, because of that class of seats we had overhead bin space was never going to be an issue and in the case of how their plane is designed it was also separated from the rest of the plane.

On our flight from Narita to San Jose it was done front to back same situation with the gate agents holding up signs that had row numbers on them in which case we boarded first as we still had the lay flat seats.

I think people are used to thinking about economy as being different than other classes meaning economy could board back to front within the respective economy class of seats but the higher class seats and fares typically denote an earlier boarding group. This is technically the way that SWA's current website spells out that Extra Legroom seats board in Group 1 and Group 2 (early) as well as people who purchase Choice Extra and those seats are in the front of the plane or middle of the plane. Someone who purchases a seat in Preferred area is supposed to be group 3-5 (early general boarding). Someone in a Standard seat would board in groups 6-8. Then someone's tier status and CC status influences this bumping them up based on that similar to how other airlines are. Someone who books Basic would be the last to board.

That's how it is listed on their website now so boarding back to front does not match that at all. That is saying someone with no status, Standard seat boards first because their seat is in the back of the plane and someone with the highest class of seats or paid the highest class fare boards last. Even having A-list Preferred doesn't mean you're automatically going to be Group 1 according to their present website, it just states no later than Group 2.

So I think a lot is just really mixed up at the moment.