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.)
“…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.”
This is no surprise at all. Indeed, SWA would be leaving money on the table if the same seat were offered at one price to all.
Some reasons: The potential purchasers have different reserve prices. So someone travelling in a group (2+) would expect to be offered higher prices in return for seats together. Someone indicating they are a rewards member has left a pile of information with SWA.
If someone said on FB that they “could not wait for their forthcoming trip….” they could expect to be offered a higher price.
etc.
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.
We need strong consumer protection laws to prevent what’s coming with AI and data sharing. Just wait until the price on grocery store shelves change based on who’s looking at the price.
I just skimmed the article, but it looks like everyone who had two different prices were using a Companion Pass to book the second seat. Per SW’s website: “Companion Pass is the benefit that allows you to choose one person to fly with you, free of airline charges (does not include taxes and fees from $5.60 one-way). So couldn’t the difference in prices be the fact that the second seat is actually free, other than taxes and fees? Or am I missing something?
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.
@1990 – Don’t worry about me “day trading WN”. Frankly IMHO airlines are horrible businesses to invest in. I haven’t owned stock in any airline in many years. Even when one performs “well” it doesn’t compare to the gains in many other sectors. As for the long term value, I agree that juicing earning one quarter or FY is short term thinking but putting in place a business model that is consistent with the rest of the industry and has the potential to generate billions in incremental revenue on an ongoing basis is just smart. WN finally woke up. I still have no plans to fly them (lack of first class is my main issue) but at least I would now if I had to where as in the past I wouldn’t due to the horrible free for all seating arrangement
Yeah, wasn’t Delta talking about doing this exact same thing?
What is needed is a Black woman with a screen shot showing she was charged more than AA White male for the same seat AT THE SAME TIME.
Also – cash upgrades may be offered at a lower price to non-loyalty members because the data probably shows that folks that interact with the loyalty program will pay more. One of those ‘hard to prove’ things because dynamic pricing is so individualized, but I’m sure it’s happening more and more and more.
Could be an A/B Test
@Retired Gambler — Alrighty. I’m not personally invested in any of their stocks directly (ignoring indexes.) I will fly WN this year, thanks to that $500 Chase Sapphire $75K spend credit.
Gary,
Are you planning to directly ask an ‘in-the-know’ Southwest representative about this pricing model? And then share the reply?
1990 is correct that the disagreement is just a difference in time horizon. Herb had a long time horizon. Don’t exploit fortress markets, but keep prices low to discourage competitors. Current management has a short time horizon and does the opposite. It will appear to work… for a while.
@nsx at FlyerTalk — Wish Herb was still around; then again, for his own sake, glad he doesn’t have to witness any of this. Best thing, financially, they ever did was jet fuel hedging; some foresight and a lot of luck there. With all these changes recently, I feel for the long-time customers who truly were loyal and got a lot of it for decades. I flew on SWA way more in the 90s and 2000s than the past decade. Good memories. Nothing lasts forever.
“George Romey says:
January 30, 2026 at 9:06 am
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, I’m delighted to say that I more or less agree with you on your point here as I understand it. Technology, especially unregulated technology run amok, will only serve to extract more revenue from us in the long run.
I wonder if this is only happening on companion fares.
I’m far more optimistic about AI and future consumers. I have no doubt firms will try to extract every cent they can by using individual-based dynamic pricing. It will be ugly at times. But, it will p!ss off consumers. So much so, I speculate, that firms will try to win over consumers by making promises not to use it. Look at DL. The “install seat heaters in every car, but charge monthly to use it” mentality will continue, but only to a point that consumers say “no more.” There won’t be a need for legislation (not that I would be surprised to see it in CA).
Consumers are not fans of price discrimination and neither are legislators. Even this deregulatory administration has railed against junk fees. Will be interesting to see how long this lasts. I put the over/under at 90 days.
…this? This is how you get people pulling their FFN /off/ of reservations until the proverbial last minute. Or, if/when WN does partnerships, people just deciding to cross-credit.