Please let me know if I am understanding this correctly.
My husband has a premier southwest card. If he is allowed to upgrade to the Priority Card at 229 annual fee, he can purchase basic fares with points and choose standard or preferrred seats for free at the time of booking. He would be able to choose for everyone on the reservation for no exta fee up to 4 people. By doing this, if we needed to cancel we would not have to worry about getting credits
for buying seats at time of purchase and then canceling. We fly 3 to 4 round trips a year so I think that it may be worth going from a 149 to 229 annual fee.
Complimentary Preferred seat at booking - Select a Preferred or Standard seat at booking, at no additional charge, valued, on average, at $70 round trip, when available - for a group of 4, this could mean an average savings of $280 round trip. For flights operating with assigned seating in 2026 and beyond