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Southwest moving to assigned seats

jp10558

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Our Chase United Explorer Mileage Plus is 95.00 per year. I know cause I’m paying it this month. I think I saw right now a 65,000 bonus miles for opening a new card. First year fee free. That definitely pays for itself.
Thank you for letting me know about that for the free checked bag. Too bad it's just for 2 people - I'd hoped it'd cover any tickets purchased with the card.
 

pedro47

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We disliked paying extra for an "A" seat boarding pass; only to have handicapped individuals and family members with small children board for us.
Problems / issue they do not have to pay extra for this privilege.
 

Luanne

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Is it one free bag for everyone on your itinerary with you?
No, just you and one other person.

Benefit Overview​

Don’t worry about overhead space anymore. Check your bag for free and save up to $140 roundtrip. The primary Cardmember and one companion traveling on the same reservation will each receive their first standard checked bag free - calculated as a $35 value for the first checked bag, each way, per person - on United-operated flights when purchasing tickets with their United Explorer Card.
 

Luanne

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We disliked paying extra for an "A" seat boarding pass; only to have handicapped individuals and family members with small children board for us.
Problems / issue they do not have to pay extra for this privilege.
Only preboard customers board ahead of A seating. Families with small children board between A and B groups, unless of course they are already in the A boarding group. And someone who is in the A group can't bring a child with them unless that child also has an A boarding position. We saw this happen on a flight. A woman was in the first 15 spots and tried to bring a child (not an infant) with her. The child was not allowed to board with her.
 

dioxide45

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Something else to consider will be the added stress of flight changes. It was so easy with Southwest. If a flight changed it wasn't like you had to go in and worry about your seat assignment. You didn't need to babysit your flights as much because there were no assigned seats. With this change, it may mean your flight gets consolidated with another and now you have a hard time finding something as good as what you had. Also, how will this impact cancel and rebook or modifying flights when there is a price drop.
 

pedro47

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Only preboard customers board ahead of A seating. Families with small children board between A and B groups, unless of course they are already in the A boarding group. And someone who is in the A group can't bring a child with them unless that child also has an A boarding position. We saw this happen on a flight. A woman was in the first 15 spots and tried to bring a child (not an infant) with her. The child was not allowed to board with her.
On our last flight from Fort Lauderdale to Virginia there were fifteen handicapped passengers in wheel chairs and over ten families with small children that boarded before my spouse and me. We were number 3 and 4 in the A boarding system. Totally unfair. IMHO

After the flight landed in Virginia ;only two or three those in wheel chairs still needed assistance .
 
Last edited:

dayooper

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That article is a bit of a mess, but from what I understand she was buying an extra seat for comfort. Something that Southwest doesn't have a policy for. They have a policy for customers of size, but that didn't apply to her. She had two tickets under the same name for the same flight. I would think her second boarding pass wouldn't scan or she doesn't get it scanned and the flight would still show an available seat which is why they continued to board passengers. The story is missing some details.
Wait, SW has a policy for people of size? Like height? What’s the limit?
 

dioxide45

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Wait, SW has a policy for people of size? Like height? What’s the limit?
You can easily google search for "southwest customer of size policy".
 

dioxide45

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On our last flight from Fort Lauderdale to Virginia there were fifteen handicapped passengers and over ten families with small children that boarded before my spouse and me. We were number 3 and 4 in the A boarding system. Totally unfair. IMHO
Southwest has some kind of pre board policy. I hear them announce something about if your boarding pass has pre board printed on it. This is separate from wheelchair. I don't know who these people are, perhaps some are military or veteran. I am not exactly sure but I see several that board after those needing assistance and before A group.
 

PigsDad

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We disliked paying extra for an "A" seat boarding pass; only to have handicapped individuals and family members with small children board for us.
Problems / issue they do not have to pay extra for this privilege.
Southwest boards families w/ small children after A group, so you were not affected by them. But the pre-board situation is pretty much out of control with Southwest now; there are so many people just gaming the system, because they can just claim they need to pre-board w/o any special documentation, etc.

Kurt
 

Superchief

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No, just you and one other person.

Benefit Overview​

Don’t worry about overhead space anymore. Check your bag for free and save up to $140 roundtrip. The primary Cardmember and one companion traveling on the same reservation will each receive their first standard checked bag free - calculated as a $35 value for the first checked bag, each way, per person - on United-operated flights when purchasing tickets with their United Explorer Card.
One nice thing about Marriott Titanium membership is the complimentary United Silver upgrade. It provides free checked bag and access to preferred seating. I don't fly United that often due to its limited flights out of CVG, but it is now my second choice after Delta because I'm lifetime Gold. Southwest was great when we flew out of MCI, but the number of 'handicapped' and family boarders kept increasing, so the early boarding cost wasn't worth it. It is interesting that most of those 'handicapped' boarders were able to disembark on their own with no assistance.
 

davidvel

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One nice thing about Marriott Titanium membership is the complimentary United Silver upgrade. It provides free checked bag and access to preferred seating. I don't fly United that often due to its limited flights out of CVG, but it is now my second choice after Delta because I'm lifetime Gold. Southwest was great when we flew out of MCI, but the number of 'handicapped' and family boarders kept increasing, so the early boarding cost wasn't worth it. It is interesting that most of those 'handicapped' boarders were able to disembark on their own with no assistance.
I've been wondering if all the media coverage of the SWA Miracle Flights has anything to do with this seat assignment change. While those seeking ambulatory miracles still can get on first, they may be assigned to seats in the back, making the scam less important. Southwest has to pay for all those wheelchairs (reported as $15-$20 each), for both departure and arrival, even if they are not used on arrival.

Again if it is true as SWA claims that "The research is clear and indicates that 80% of Southwest customers, and 86% of potential customers, prefer an assigned seat,” this si a no brainer and should have been done decades ago.

SWA is not a low cost carrier, they are a low end mainline carrier.
 

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Southwest has some kind of pre board policy. I hear them announce something about if your boarding pass has pre board printed on it. This is separate from wheelchair. I don't know who these people are, perhaps some are military or veteran. I am not exactly sure but I see several that board after those needing assistance and before A group.
Anyone who claims they need pre board but do not need "assistance."
 

davidvel

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No, just you and one other person.

Benefit Overview​

Don’t worry about overhead space anymore. Check your bag for free and save up to $140 roundtrip. The primary Cardmember and one companion traveling on the same reservation will each receive their first standard checked bag free - calculated as a $35 value for the first checked bag, each way, per person - on United-operated flights when purchasing tickets with their United Explorer Card.
That's pretty cheesy.

AA: Up to four individuals traveling with the eligible primary cardmember will also get their first checked bag free of charge if they are listed in the same reservation.

Delta: As a benefit of Card Membership, you can check your first bag free on Delta flights booked with your Card (up to 8 passengers on the same reservation).
 

dioxide45

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I think we've also discovered that these free checked bag credit card perks don't always work on international flights.
 

Ken555

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I do like the United 70lbs bag included with Silver, which we get with Marriott Titanium status. But, I still won’t pay more for a seat on United because of it and all my future flights have other airlines with less expensive flights…though I’m still waiting to buy.
 

CalGalTraveler

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The problem with all of these bag perks is that you both have to be on the same ticket. If you have one on points and one paid via work, it never works. Glad United allows a companion for lifetime million miler Gold so we can both bring bags with no strings attached.

We were going to status match our lifetime Golds on United to Southwest to get automatic A1 - 15 status. But may not matter if seats are now assigned.
 

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BTW, extra legroom would be nice for Rick, but I don't need it. So we pay for two premium seats for Rick to have more legroom?
I don't understand how they're going to do that. Are they going to reconfigure the planes to remove seats in order to allow extra legroom? Or just charge extra for the emergency exit row? I don't get it.

I just paid extra for legroom on a flight (other airline) for my mom because we're both tall and she's elderly and I don't want any issue of blood clots or trouble getting in and out of the seat for her. But she can't do the emergency row, she doesn't meet those qualifications. It kind of irked me they charged extra for that row but only able-bodied people can use it.
 

davidvel

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I don't understand how they're going to do that. Are they going to reconfigure the planes to remove seats in order to allow extra legroom? Or just charge extra for the emergency exit row? I don't get it.

I just paid extra for legroom on a flight (other airline) for my mom because we're both tall and she's elderly and I don't want any issue of blood clots or trouble getting in and out of the seat for her. But she can't do the emergency row, she doesn't meet those qualifications. It kind of irked me they charged extra for that row but only able-bodied people can use it.
The rows slide on tracks. They can remove a row near the front and then slide 6-8 rows to give them more legroom.

As for exit row, I certainly don't want someone who is not able bodied sitting there, paid or not.
 

Luanne

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That's pretty cheesy.

AA: Up to four individuals traveling with the eligible primary cardmember will also get their first checked bag free of charge if they are listed in the same reservation.

Delta: As a benefit of Card Membership, you can check your first bag free on Delta flights booked with your Card (up to 8 passengers on the same reservation).
JetBlue also allows more passengers free baggage as long as they are on the same reservation. I think it's 3, but it may be 4.
 

jwalk03

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We disliked paying extra for an "A" seat boarding pass; only to have handicapped individuals and family members with small children board for us.
Problems / issue they do not have to pay extra for this privilege.

Family boarding is after the A group not before. The only people that board before the A group are pre-board passengers
 

1Kflyerguy

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You'd be surprised how many large corporations are still running legacy software. Most ATMs run on Windows XP. Marriott International still uses mainframe and hires programmers that can still program in COBOL. Till a few years ago, Costco was still running their systems off mainframe and AS400 systems. We won't even start to talk about government because they are the worst. Upgrading is extremely costly, time consuming and painful to both the company and customers and it really doesn't help generate new revenue.

I agree many companies run legacy software, one of my current work projects is trying to move customers off some of our older legacy software, as its no longer supported.

As for generating new revenue, sometimes it can help drive revenue if you can offer new features, stay with a current interface etc. Just look at how often people complain about how antiquated some of the timeshare reservation systems, or lack of a functional mobile app. There is a younger demographic that won't be impressed with a "product" than can't accessed via a mobile device.

As for the most recent outage, Southwest was helped by their old school systems, but only a year back they had a full meltdown from their old systems... That cost them plenty in lost business and fines.
 

rickandcindy23

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I tell the flight attendants that firefighters would be the ideal people to be in exit row seats because I know Rick to be very observant and he has fast reflexes. He sees things happening that others don't see. Three accidents since his retirement that he has witnessed and parked the car on the side of the road before I even knew what was going on. One on Maui, when a woman hit a pole in Wailea that fell into the street, another on the interstate, when a truck lost its load and pummeled a car, and another that was on a busy corner about half a mile from our house. He is quick to react.
 
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