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

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Definitely interested to hear everyone's reports of how the 48 hour upgrades are working. Obviously we're not all flying this week, but this thread could be a good resource to get a sense of how competitive they are.

My family of 5 has two CPs among us, so we'd have to make changes on 3 confirm numbers to get our upgraded seats. If they're being claimed in a matter of seconds, then that just won't work for us.

I played around with a test flight this morning that was 7 minutes past 48 hours and there were still plenty of extra legroom seats. But, I also noticed that the connecting flight was still showing me having to pay to upgrade. So, the 48 hour upgrades will be per leg of the trip, like upgrading to A1-15 used to be. They will NOT function like EBCI / 24 hour check in, where you're looking at the time of the first leg of the flight and then checked in for both legs. Definitely an annoyance if you're on vacation and have to stop your fun twice to upgrade/select seats for both legs of your flight.

 

[katallo]

I’ll be waiting to see reviews for the new seating regimen. I checked another forum and so far January’s reviews are awful for SW. I received 2 emails today one for a $49 sale and one for a $59 sale. Of course, April flights from BWI to MCO are outrageously expensive (237-599)

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think the only advantage that business or solo (or people who don't care about being split up) in the new SWA rules have is that if there's only one seat upgrade (either from Standard to Preferred or up to Extra Legroom) available in a row it opens up that option at the 48 hour mark whereas those who have more than one in their party and don't want to split up may run into issues. Of course the middle seat would be the least desirable so someone may not take that option if say a window and an aisle are already taken but just thinking out loud here.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I’ll be waiting to see reviews for the new seating regimen. I checked another forum and so far January’s reviews are awful for SW. I received 2 emails today one for a $49 sale and one for a $59 sale. Of course, April flights from BWI to MCO are outrageously expensive (237-599)

I always keep in mind what fare class someone is talking about. I'm not meaning that SWA isn't expensive these days because we've all seen the pricing be nutty in the last several years but that without knowing the fare class it's not as big picture.

I normally won't talk about Basic but that will be what SWA is selling more than likely at those sale prices. That was what they would do back when it was called WGA.

 

[SkyGuy]

My husband flew today the last day with open seating. Tomorrow he flies back home the first day with assigned seating.

I'm not entirely certain timing of when you buy a ticket interacts but this is so new so I only can guess. Husband purchased his ticket before his coworker.

For easy format

Husband's ticket
Fare: Choice
Status: A-List Preferred
Seat Type: Extra Legroom (selected at booking)
Location (window, middle, aisle): Aisle
Boarding Group: 2

Husband's Coworker's ticket
Fare: Choice
Status: A-List
Seat Type: Upgraded at 48 hours for free to Extra Legroom
Location (window, middle, aisle): Window
Boarding Group: 1

Using the above information we were thinking it's the window seat location potentially giving the higher boarding group, have no idea again either if there's a cap on the amount of people per group.

Thanks for this. I fly on the 28th and will be looking for experiences from today! I have a window seat, so I’ll try to remember to report what group I get (I’m also A-List with extra legroom).

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

General talk here for a moment--If you go into the low fare calendar you can choose to what ticket you want to search for and see the lowest price of that particular fare class. Searching for the Lowest Fare like we used to do more often than not it's just going to show Basic fares, you'd have to know that Basic fares weren't available for that day/flight to get that Lowest Fare to mean something other than Basic fare.

This is an example of when searching Lowest Fare nets you higher fares (I believe most were Choice) instead of Basic for specific days only:
A random Salt Lake City location was chosen to/from my home airport for a random day with Lowest Fare chosen as the search option


If I select Basic instead notice how some dates now show Unavailable either meaning all Basic tickets have been sold for those flight option or they aren't offering that. But also notice how none of the pricing actually changed because the Lowest Fare was reflecting in this exact scenario only Basic Fares since that was the lowest fare option for those days.


So just be careful how you search and how you look at it. I know many of us use the Low Fare Calendar and many probably have already been working with this but for the sake of not feeling like a misleading pricing situation that's why I mentioned this.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Thanks for this. I fly on the 28th and will be looking for experiences from today! I have a window seat, so I’ll try to remember to report what group I get (I’m also A-List with extra legroom).

That would be lovely!

If you wouldn't mind and you remember can you also glance around at the overhead bin space when you board/as boarding happens. I'm just interested to see if we find a pattern over time of bin space availability.

 

[katallo]

Thanks. I have been pricing choice fares.

 

[leebee]

I've been reading the new seating documentation on SW's website this morning. There are 30 footnotes; this ought to go well.

 

[AuroraluvsPhillip]

I'd also be interested in seeing how they handle the gate checking of carry ons with the new system. Will they be using the sizer? Will everyone past a certain # boarding group get gate checked or will they still be yelling for volunteers until the last minute.

 

[AuroraluvsPhillip]

So there's a post on Reddit basically saying that boarding now takes longer because, like other airlines, people in earlier boarding groups stow their carry on in a bin more toward the front and then head down the aisle to take their seat in the rear. Which means that people toward the front of the plane find no bin space and have to stow their suitcase behind their row and then have to fight their way back to their seat against the tide of incoming passengers, thus slowing the entire boarding process.
The fact that just about everyone will have a carry on is going to cause big slowdowns.

 

[Tink3815]

Read this on a facebook post today. Lots of posts with this happening. Beware if you booked the first few seats and plan on bringing a roller bag.

the first row of the plane on each side doesn’t have under-seat space due to the bulkhead, so they have to put their personal item (backpack) in overhead space. Also, the first couple rows have no overhead space at all because those bins are used by the flight attendants for supplies, snacks, etc., so those passengers’ carryons have to go in bins that are a few rows behind their seats. That then creates a cascading shortage of space for everyone behind them.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Alright guys I've got bad news about this new way. FWIW this some of this mirroring what I've seen reported on FB groups earlier today. It may be the first day but there are clearly bad ways of them doing this process. I'm seeing a lot of complaints all over the place about this.

So here's how my husband's gate area looks with the new boarding, this is Phoenix to KC. They still have the pylons for now but instead there's Group 1 and Group 2 listed. They did NOT call out WILMA type boarding. I think if that's how they are doing it it's baked into your Boarding Group.




Boarding:
My husband Group 2, he is estimating about 35 people are in front of him in Group 1 that does NOT include pre-boarding and Priority Boarding. He didn't see many people do the Priority Boarding and only 3 for pre-board.

There were 3 people for pre-board but it took 10 mins to board them. He said his flight took 35 mins to board completely and it was very chaotic for the first half of it. I have heard reports of flights taking much longer today to board.

His coworker, get this got BUMPED from Group 1. Just randomly updated in the app updated him to Group 2 and updated his boarding pass!! I didn't know that was even possible. I asked him if his coworker was going to ask the gate agent what was up with that but because they are in line already he didn't want to lose his spot. If it wasn't some strange glitch it makes me wonder if it tracked too many people in Group 1 and booted him. He was in row 4 Window seat on the left side of the plane. My husband was row 3 aisle seat on the right side of the plane.


Bin Space:
My husband was able to get the last bin space in row 3. People who were in his row in the window and middle they showed up well after him and they had to put their bags much further back. In the 800 series the first few overhead bin space is smaller and there's one used for crew. This really is showing to be a pain point which I think started showing up once checked bags started being charged.

Here's the crew bin that takes up on the left side for rows 1 (the open bin towards the right side of the picture)


My husband saw people had stored their luggage in the row 1 and 2 on the right side but were not seated there. People who were seated there moved those bags to row 3 and 4, thus it's now a domino effect. There were on the right side of the plane, he said on the other side of the plane the bags were even further back than their respective row should have been.

This is that left side of the plane still showing the full bin space by the time my husband boarded (also why the above one was closed). This plane was not one that had the oversized overhead bin space. And really I don't think it's due to oversized bags, it's just there isn't enough bin space for these seats.



If this continues if you're not in Group 1 you may be fairly out of luck on bin space unless you choose the back of the plane. It's possible the middle with that second set of Extra Legroom seats may give you a better shot too. My husband just pointed out the risk could be an aircraft change adjusting the Extra Legroom seats there. He said that happened to a plane near him where they asked people in the rows in the exit row to go up to the gate agents for more information. And his plane, sometime earlier today, was swapped from a 700 series to an 800 series. So maybe they did a plane swap between the two, IDK but yeah.

My husband even said "Boarding in Group 5 would suck". If you're in the back of the plane this might now become the best spot in the plane for overhead bin space so long as you're not in the Groups 6-8 perhaps. Eventually the FAs told people as they boarded to just take any open bin space which IME is normal once they are further along in the process and are getting antsy to leave. The FAs seemed very stressed my husband said. My husband also said if he was regular A-list he would not be a happy camper right now which I think we'll probably be that next year. My husband said "yeah I'll join the long list of complaints with the new process"

It may be the first day but there are some real issues with it. I don't even know we can call it kinks as that implies it's not working like they wanted and well I'm not sure it isn't. The highest priced tickets are in front but unlike other airlines the overhead bin space is a real concern when it shouldn't be for the so-called premium spots. But I do hope they work on this. I also hope the bumping in Boarding groups was a random glitch and not something that can actually happen as a regular thing.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Read this on a facebook post today. Lots of posts with this happening. Beware if you booked the first few seats and plan on bringing a roller bag.

the first row of the plane on each side doesn’t have under-seat space due to the bulkhead, so they have to put their personal item (backpack) in overhead space. Also, the first couple rows have no overhead space at all because those bins are used by the flight attendants for supplies, snacks, etc., so those passengers’ carryons have to go in bins that are a few rows behind their seats. That then creates a cascading shortage of space for everyone behind them.

This is already a thing. You've never had under seat for the first row. It has nothing to do with the assigned seating.

The FAs having the overhead bin space is also already a thing. It has nothing to do with the assigned seating. It may have a greater impact now though because that is now technically someone's seat who now has no overhead bin space for them dedicated, before people could just bypass an empty (even if it was a good seat by location) because the overhead bin space wasn't there. It can create a domino effect.

 

[DisneyRunner2009]

We could never understand why crew or snack storage was above row one to begin with. Then there's the whole way to put your bag in the bin. Like a book, wheels first. People even throw it up there horizontally.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

SW bumped their fare drop, now 2/12:

 

[FreeTime]

Read this on a facebook post today. Lots of posts with this happening. Beware if you booked the first few seats and plan on bringing a roller bag.

the first row of the plane on each side doesn’t have under-seat space due to the bulkhead, so they have to put their personal item (backpack) in overhead space. Also, the first couple rows have no overhead space at all because those bins are used by the flight attendants for supplies, snacks, etc., so those passengers’ carryons have to go in bins that are a few rows behind their seats. That then creates a cascading shortage of space for everyone behind them.

This is not new.

 

[katallo]

Hopefully for Southwest this has not been a huge mistake. Reviews about pricing and seating on other forums have been awful.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

My daughter flew home yesterday from MCO and said it was a mess. She did not have an assigned seat and checked in at the gate when she arrived (well over 2 hours early). They did not assign her a seat until about 15 minutes prior to departure and only after she went to the desk several times to see what the holdup was. The flight ended up leaving a few minutes late because of the confusion. She said we need to look for a new airline if this is how things are going to be. We're going to give them a little time to figure things out because they really were our preferred carrier for a LONG time, but we won't hesitate to switch to another carrier after we use up our miles. And we know we could have purchased a seat for her -- it was a last-minute trip and we were curious to see how it would go.

 

[Tink3815]

saw this on another forum, has anyone done this with a 3-31 expiring credit that is transferable to another person to extend the credit

However, there is a way around this. You can buy a WN gift card (physical or online) and apply it along with your credit to any dummy WN ticket in Choice Preferred that is slightly higher in price than your credit value (so the gift card covers at least some tiny portion of it), then cancel the ticket. Did that on one of my trips and it removed the expiration date for all of my credit (which was originally used on a Basic fare), plus made it transferable (because of Choice Preferred).