Southwest’s new seat fees aren’t just changing over time — they’re changing by passenger, even when two travelers are looking at the same seat on the same flight. In one example, a Companion Pass flyer saw an exit row seat priced at $45 for them but $26 for their companion, and similar screenshots and reports are piling up across social media.
Seat assignments are no longer ‘first come, first served’ on Southwest. And passengers are seeing different prices for the same seat being offered on the same flight – depending on who you are. In fact, Southwest’s most loyal customers seem to be asked to pay more than infrequent ones.
Reader Jason shared this experience which turns out to be something that many Southwest flyers are complaining about:
I am an A list member with southwest and have companion pass. when I went to upgrade a flight this morning I noticed my account is being charged $15 more to get an extra legroom seat than they are charging my companion.Pictured below is flight 1594 from Las Vegas to Portland. I had the same thing on my flight from milwaukee to Orlando on saturday..
Southwest was charging them $15 more for the same exact seat than for their companion. Here’s another example shared online in recent days, where the difference was $26 for the same seat – with the Companion Pass holding customer asked to pay more.
Booked basic fare ticket for 1/30 and have a SW Plus CC. Today I was able to select a little bit better standard seat. I also have a companion pass; when checking the prices for the exit row for me, $45, but for my companion the same seat was $26. What’s that all about? (Actually all of the $$ seats for me were twice the price of my husband’s seat.)
And here’s another discussion of Southwest’s personalized pricing in the past few days:
I have companion pass and am a Chase Southwest Performance Business cardholder. …On the exact same flight, the price for the exact same seats are more for me than for my companion. Were we expecting Southwest to charge different prices for seats for different people?
…I understand the price of seats changing over time, perhaps due to supply/demand, but not charging different prices for different people at the same moment. I thought this had to be wrong – but triple-checked, logged out of each account and back in, and sure enough – different prices.
Does Southwest Charge Different Prices For The Same Seats To Different People?
byu/nyse_19 inSouthwestAirlines
This has apparently been going on for months, because while this week was the first time Southwest was flying with assigned seats they’ve been selling seat assignments for these flights since July 29.
I didn’t have charging their best customers more for the same product on my bingo card for the ‘new Southwest’ but I suppose a loyal customer penalty does now seem on brand, the more I think about it.
This is what happens when morons are put in charge of a well run business – and these idiots are not thru with their idiotic changes. The one change that loyal flyers would approve of is changing the name to either Gougewest – or- Southworst.
the loyal customer penalty
i luv it
the beatings will continue until morale improves
But, but… Wall Street likes it… –Tim. (Short-term profit, long-term loss of customer base.)
This is the next frontier in airline pricing. Using algos to collect data from you and charge you more. So if you regularly upfare the algos try to maximize your price pain point-or what you’re willing to pay for a better seat or upgrade. To those that think technology is always so wonderful.
@George Romey — So you’re no fan of the techno-feudalistic police-state, USA circa 2026? Thank goodness we don’t have any data privacy, worker or consumer protections like those libcuck elitist socialist Europeans! /s
@1990 – the market does love what WN is doing. BTW just to educate you, businesses are set up to benefit shareholders, not as a charity for workers or to appeal to a vocal very small minority that whine (like on the blogs). Truth is that like it or not WN will make more money under this model. Whining about the “good old days” won’t change anything
@Retired Gambler — I’ll say, I much prefer your “re-education” over the one-way boxcar to Xinjiang. In all seriousness, I am well-aware of the ‘we’re a business, not a charity’ trope, yet, you do realize that one-liner is a cop-out, because, short-term juicing this or that stock isn’t creating long-term shareholder value or sustainable growth. So, it’s about time horizons, really. Besides, if you’re day-trading WN, good luck with that, bud, because you’re basically out of your retirement then. All-in on red!
Excuse my ignorance (I have plenty) but, I assume this person is saying that an aisle seat is more costly than a middle seat or a window seat is more costly than a middle. I don’t think this is unique to SW. Looking at AA, seat selections are very similar. The exception is some exit rows on AA are priced the same but almost all other main cabin extra rows have different prices depending on aisle/middle/window. Saying the prices are higher for the exact same seat is not accurate as it is not the exact same seat location. Of course I could be wrong!
I now see my mistake. Two screen shots of the same chart. Told you my ignorance is high level!
Gary Leff points out that Southwest Airlines is imposing a penalty on loyal customers by charging different prices for exit-row seats. One poor soul got hit with a $45 fee, while another paid $26 extra for the exact same spot. Clearly, Southwest has discovered a new branch of mathematics where 45 plus 26 equals pure profit. But why stop there? If Southwest lobbies the FAA to change the safety rules to let passengers sit on top of their companion in the same exit-row seat, Southwest could charge both $45 and $26 for the same seat—$71 for the privilege of being a human carry-on! And as a bonus, Southwest Airlines could argue that with twice the bodies per seat, there’d be double the muscle to fling open the emergency exit in case of fire. Now that’s what I call safety in numbers.
This is why, despite spouse being A-L-P and me being the companion, we’re transitioning over to UA over the next 12 months. He’s also just realizing that UA flights to some of his destinations are cheaper than WN. 12 months from now WN will be in bankruptcy.
and to think that the world went nuts over the POSSIBILITY that DL would use AI to customize pricing.