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

[teawar]

I had random a $38.80 travel credit expiring on June 2nd, and I used it to upgrade a flight that is before Memorial Day! Yippee

 

[Lsdolphin]

More Monkey Business from SWA....just got their email regarding their new “plus fare”...at same time I see the fare I paid $59 for just jumped to $119...I haven’t booked my return flight yet as all the return non stop flights that day have been sitting at $163 since the new schedule dropped.
so now wondering whether I should just go ahead and pay the $163 for the return flight or wait a little longer and hope price drops. the entire month of August had been $163 everyday until a few weeks ago when many flights dropped to $59...

 

[jkelly86]

I just looked on my app. I have priority and it says I earn "unlimited" tier qualifying points. 1500 for every 10k spend.

I could have sworn I read that maxed out at 15k points per card somewhere else. Maybe that's one of the features that changed in late 2021?

I thought it was limited to 15k per card, too. I am interested in learning the answer to this question.

 

[cmarsh31]

When SW messed with the flights for July & August, they canceled all the afternoon direct flights and added just one... 7:45am OUT of MCO. Shockingly, that's now, by far, the cheapest flight of the day. Good job SW, you created a flight option so bad that people are actually choosing the BWI layover option.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

at same time I see the fare I paid $59 for just jumped to $119...

I'm guessing you booked the $59 as part of a sale.

If so I personally don't look at the pricing as "just jumped" as that makes me think of fluctuations in pricing rather than getting a fare booked when it was on sale. That's just me though

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I wanted to mention there was a earlier conversation a long while back about some group having an A and another part of the group having a B. Our flight home from MCO to KCI on Sunday (the 15th) they did specifically call out "only A's Boarding, no B or C. If you have a B or C do not get in line, you need to wait, again only A's, no B or C please do not try to Board if you don't have an A group"

When we went from KCI to MCO on the 4th it was more like a brief "now Boarding A's just A's"

We purchased EBCI for me a few months ago (I think it was February) and for the flight down I was A 40 and the flight back home I was A 34. My husband who is A-list was A20 something, I can't remember exactly (maybe A24?) on the way down and on the way back he was A29.

Surprisingly neither flight had a ton of pre-Boards. Since we were A's I'm not sure how many participated in Family Boarding but it didn't seem like a lot of kids like I've seen in the past. To be fair it was a 5:05am flight down and a 10:55pm flight on the way home (that got delayed and didn't leave til just after midnight) so the chances of kids being on it were probably slimmer from the beginning.

I did notice though a few people on each flight def. overpacked their carryon to the point where on the way down one of them the plastic handle was damaged (it completely broke off) trying to get it in the overhead bin compartment. The FA was the one trying to get it in the overhead bin but her coworker at the front with the phone PA was just trying to speed up boarding and immediately went to "we'll have to gate check that". Luckily (well except for the damage) it wasn't a long process to shove that in there. PSA..try not to overpack your carryon. Those expander zippers are great but they can make you think you can pack more than the space truly allows for.

 

[Lsdolphin]

I'm guessing you booked the $59 as part of a sale.

If so I personally don't look at the pricing as "just jumped" as that makes me think of fluctuations in pricing rather than getting a fare booked when it was on sale. That's just me though

No the flight has been $59 for a few weeks and was the same yesterday

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

No the flight has been $59 for a few weeks and was the same yesterday

Sure, sales though can last that long though too. $59 is a pretty common sale price listed depending on your airport and destination that's what made me immediately think of sale rather than $59 being a normal fare, then shooting up to $119

For example this is an e-mail sent to me end of March:







IDK was just a thought , I know how a lot of us have been watching airfare pricing lately

 

[VandVsmama]

Our October flights jumped in price a lot compared to last week. Our PHX-->MCO flight on 10/1 is now >$600 one way!

 

[Seabean]

Questions related to PHL and BWI....

Does SW have more flights out of BWI than PHL?

If so, is it *slightly* more ... or *substantially* more?

And also if so, is that the main reason fares to MCO seem much less expensive? (from BWI)

 

[Gary2T]

Does SW have more flights out of BWI than PHL?

If so, is it *slightly* more ... or *substantially* more?

Yes. Substantially more. BWI is the Southwest equivalent of a hub, even though they don't call it that.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/does-southwest-airlines-have-hubs/

 

[nekonekoneko]

Questions related to PHL and BWI....

Does SW have more flights out of BWI than PHL?

If so, is it *slightly* more ... or *substantially* more?

And also if so, is that the main reason fares to MCO seem much less expensive? (from BWI)

Baltimore is a focus airport for Southwest, so they bounce a lot of flights in and out of there, especially for connections. They offer plenty of non stops to Orlando every day.

They've been pulling out of the Philly to Orlando route slowly. They used to offer a non stop every morning. That's gone, with what used to be a non stop at least once a day. Now, they only offer random ones on the weekends. All weekday flights to Orlando have at least one layover.

 

[MarBee]

Questions related to PHL and BWI....

Does SW have more flights out of BWI than PHL?

If so, is it *slightly* more ... or *substantially* more?

And also if so, is that the main reason fares to MCO seem much less expensive? (from BWI)

As the others have said, there are way more options from BWI than PHL. I’m currently trying to burn my remaining points since PHL is my home airport, and I can’t find any direct flights to anywhere I want to go using the entire current schedule with multiple flexible dates. I’m super bummed because I love SW, but the 2.5 hour drive to BWI for me is not going to work.

 

[Lsdolphin]

As the others have said, there are way more options from BWI than PHL. I’m currently trying to burn my remaining points since PHL is my home airport, and I can’t find any direct flights to anywhere I want to go using the entire current schedule with multiple flexible dates. I’m super bummed because I love SW, but the 2.5 hour drive to BWI for me is not going to work.

BWI is closest major airport to me and it’s 2 hr 45 min drive.

 

[npatellye]

I wanted to mention there was a earlier conversation a long while back about some group having an A and another part of the group having a B. Our flight home from MCO to KCI on Sunday (the 15th) they did specifically call out "only A's Boarding, no B or C. If you have a B or C do not get in line, you need to wait, again only A's, no B or C please do not try to Board if you don't have an A group"

When we went from KCI to MCO on the 4th it was more like a brief "now Boarding A's just A's"

That may or may not have been me. It happened to us in 2021 where my husband, 8 year old, and I were given As. Then there were a few random people after us and our 5 year old was given B. All of our tickets were purchased together and I checked us all in together.

One gate agent at BWI said to go ahead and board with A with her because they know that something went awry and there’s no way a child should be boarding so far apart from the rest of the party. Then our gate was changed and the gate agent at the new gate was an absolute jerk and said something very loudly about how I couldn’t understand letters and there is no way a B can board with me, no exceptions. We exited the line and went to family boarding. When we got to her again, she had another snarky comment about now this wasn’t so hard was it. Needless to say, we have never flown Southwest again after that and we never will. I have $200 of travel funds for each of us sitting there and we’ve opted to let them expire and we used other airlines for our last trip to Disney and other trips between that trip and now.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

That may or may not have been me. It happened to us in 2021 where my husband, 8 year old, and I were given As. Then there were a few random people after us and our 5 year old was given B. All of our tickets were purchased together and I checked us all in together.

One gate agent at BWI said to go ahead and board with A with her because they know that something went awry and there’s no way a child should be boarding so far apart from the rest of the party. Then our gate was changed and the gate agent at the new gate was an absolute jerk and said something very loudly about how I couldn’t understand letters and there is no way a B can board with me, no exceptions. We exited the line and went to family boarding. When we got to her again, she had another snarky comment about now this wasn’t so hard was it. Needless to say, we have never flown Southwest again after that and we never will. I gave $200 of travel funds for each of us sitting there and we’ve opted to let them expire and we used other airlines for our last trip to Disney and other trips between that trip and now.

I don't think it was you because the trip IIRC was to be this year. That said I'm sorry to hear about the gate agent snark, generally speaking they are usually quite pleasant but as with other airlines and TSA agents and other airport staff you sometimes get them on a quite bad day

 

[MarBee]

BWI is closest major airport to me and it’s 2 hr 45 min drive.

Bummer!

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

I don't think it was you because the trip IIRC was to be this year. That said I'm sorry to hear about the gate agent snark, generally speaking they are usually quite pleasant but as with other airlines and TSA agents and other airport staff you sometimes get them on a quite bad day

I think you are thinking of my trip last month. We had 2 As and 1 B...all bought early bird on the same reservation. In our experience, we asked the gate agent politely beforehand if my hubs who ended up with the B number could board at the end of the As with us (me and our 2 year old). Agent didn't even bat an eye and said it was fine.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think you are thinking of my trip last month. We had 2 As and 1 B...all bought early bird on the same reservation. In our experience, we asked the gate agent politely beforehand if my hubs who ended up with the B number could board at the end of the As with us (me and our 2 year old). Agent didn't even bat an eye and said it was fine.

Might have been, I don't remember too too much just remember it was this year not last year. They def. mentioned it for our flights so I thought I'd reiterate that here as a recent flying experience. I had forgotten about it until the gate agent made their announcements when we were flying to Orlando and then it caught my attention again when we were leaving Orlando (especially because they were much more specific than our home airport). Very to the point..don't do it was their message

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Oh on the topic of WGA+ it does seem like $30 is the going difference observationally . We were pricing out both Vegas (which *sigh* my husband has convinced me to go to again in September) and Hawaii and both destinations were $30 difference between WGA and WGA+