Southwest Airlines had a ‘big bang’ on May 28th. They started charging for checked bags. They started expiring travel credits. And there are all sorts of Easter Eggs in the negative changes the airline is making, like charging a fee for curbside check-in (a change the airline never announced) after firing all of their skycaps.
It’s unclear whether this is another unannounced negative change, or just that Southwest’s IT systems weren’t up for making their planned changes correctly, but you can no longer change the outbound portion of a ticket without affecting the return and this appears even to impact same day flight changes.
- Changing the outbound portion of a pre-May 28th ‘Wanna Get Away’ reservation will impose basic economy restrictions on the return.
- Even doing a same day flight change to the outbound portion of a trip causes the return to become basic economy, even though those restrictions aren’t supposed to apply to tickets purchased prior to May 28.
- Making a change, even a same day change, means that if you cancel the return your travel credit will have an expiration date instead of the promised credits not expiring that should apply to all pre-May 28th reservations.
- In fact, if you bought your tickets six months ago, and the change imposes basic economy restrictions, you may not get any travel credit at all – since basic economy credits are now valid for only six months from date of original ticket purchase (and not for six months from when the credit is issued).
- What’s more, making a same day change to the outbound of a pre-May 28 Wanna Get Away fare reservation even causes you to lose the ability to make a same day change the to the return portion of the ticket (since it becomes a basic economy ticket, and basic economy doesn’t permit same day changes).
This all hits Southwest Rapid Rewards elite A-List members the most. They’ll lose at least one free back on the return portion of their trip if they make a same day change to the outbound.
It’s a complete surprise to see Southwest treating the return half of a roundtrip ticket as having been changed when a change is made to the outbound. While that may be something other airlines have done in the past, it’s not been Southwest’s practice.
And they never announced that they would be changing this practice – so Southwest’s customers are getting caught by surprise when they learn they’ve lost free checked bags, the ability to make a same day change to their tickets and more just for exercising the options available to them on the tickets they bought.
Surely elite members being told that they could still make same day changes to the cheapest tickets, as long as they were purchased prior to May 28, meant that they would be able to make such changes to both halves of their roundtrip!
I have flown on a wide variety of airlines over 40+ years of travelling, and Southwest still ranks dead last, even compared to the likes of Spirit, Frontier, Wizzair, and easyJet (still haven’t tried Ryanair yet, the reputation alone has made me always go with another alternative)
My first and only experience on Southwest was a short one hour hop between so Cal and the Bay Area, roughly 20+ years ago. I somehow got stuck with three other larger folks in two rows of 2×2 seats that faced each other (like you would see on a commuter train, except with so little room, all eight of our legs were basically entangled the entire trip). I do congratulate them for bending the laws of spacetime as that one hour flight somehow seemed longer than an 8 hour transatlantic flight in regular economy.
I’ve probably purchased more Southwest tickets than any others despite working for another airline the past ten years. Yes, there were that many pros to buying Southwest when I did buy tickets instead of using my flight benefits. With all the recent changes I will be shopping around when I need to buy tickets, and Southwest will be low on my list of desired airlines. It’s the end of an era – I flew them almost exclusively prior to working in the industry – and I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that it makes me sad. I’ll miss the great airline they used to be. I hope they can weather this mess.
@bossa I’ve taken my fair share of Frontier flights leading up to this one, including ones where I traveled only with the underseat personal item (for sub-$40 roundtrips within California, that I booked with airport agents where I would have paid double that online (a hack in its own right), or even sub-$40 when booking online outright, I know what I sign up for and have put up with what that entails with no issue), and that was before Frontier went after Southwest’s customer base with cheaper/free Economy Bundles (carry-on bags, seat choice, and no change/cancel fees), their free checked bag offer, or Elite Gold status for having a Southwest account. No Southwest elite status prerequisite required, but a shameless “registration fee” for Elite Gold that can still pay for itself after even one trip. I have also happily taken Spirit on nonstop redeye transcons for 1/3 the price of the next option, as well as other airlines like United, Delta, JetBlue and Breeze for varying types of trips.
For this particular trip (a bit farther than just intra-California), Frontier’s price was $102 (booked at the airport after I arrived on a Breeze flight, thus no need to separately trek to the airport) which included seat choice, bag, and no fee to change/cancel (even a regular Economy Bundle in lieu of Elite Gold includes this, and they can either cost $0 or $20 per way; the Elite Gold includes those, plus opens Preferred seats at booking, and Premium and UpFront Plus seats via upgrades). Frontier also surprisingly has alternative itinerary options on this specific route that do not add a huge amount of time in the event the original itinerary is disrupted from IRROPS.
The next options were American at $145, Southwest at $157 (or equivalent in points), and United at $169, all Basic Economy fares which mean restrictions on changes/cancels and no free seat choice in all cases except Southwest’s open seating (at least for now; the randomly-assigned seating for Basic fares as of 2026 will be the last straw for me), while United in particular doesn’t even include more than the personal item. Main Cabin/Wanna Get Away Plus/Economy fares for all of these are over $230, and what amenties they do have over Frontier’s are simply not worth that difference in price for me personally. $157 for Southwest under the old policy of included bags and itinerary flexibility was great value in comparison, even against Frontier, but they are no longer standing out in that fashion.
With Frontier (and Spirit and Breeze for that matter), I’ve come in with low expectations and have come away with an impression of great value for the price paid. With Southwest, they had built a reputation and a perceived value over years, where leading up to this point I had booked more reservations with Southwest than any other airline. Now that they have destroyed their unique distinctions and value by adopting restricted Basic fares (and surprise surprise, their fares didn’t reduce in light of the changes to compensate for what was cut, not unlike almost every airline’s implementation of Basic Economy), they are not competing for my business.
Screw Southwest, and their new greedy Wall Street owners. They have completely ruined the brand which the airline spent so many years to establish. I had used Southwest Airlines extensively in the past, but no more. I will never fly them, and plan to go elsewhere, even if it means paying a higher fare.
The promise they said of the credit not expiring applies to a credit never applied to a ticket. For example if you have a credit from 2024 it will never expire. But if you applied that money to a ticket bought BEFORE May 28 and then try to change that ticket or cancel that ticket, it now has an expiration date. It was written in the rules and folks are not reading that rule and understanding it correctly. Its written in the rules that any changes you make to those ticket bought prior to May 27 will now have an expiration and that date reverts all the way back to the original date that you bought the ticket. Now folks are seeing how the rule works.
I’ve been a loyal SWA customer for 30+ years, yet they dropped my A List status like a hot potato – as my travel dwindled during COVID. In addition, my 40 tickets were no longer usable – why I ask? I earned those! These new policies recently imposed has me now looking at other options.
Southwest Will Suffer The Wrath of a failing Economy. It Will Be Sad To See Ir Demise!
I have primarily used SW for multiple trips a year and did not price shop. No more. I will be price shopping.
Just another reason to not fly on Southwest Airlines.
I currently fly SW at least two round trips a month, and they have been my #1 airline the entirety of my life. I loved the flexibility they offered and always encouraged to travel with SW when it came to group trips with family and friends.
-Sadly, sometimes the divorce is not one you wanted, but your partner is no longer the one you married…
An outbound change to a round trip ticket has always resulted in a change to the return flight on southwest. I have only purchased one ways on southwest for the last 5 years + because of that.
Making the shareholders happy is the important issue. They just better hope that there are enough of them to buy a lot of tickets now that regular passengers no longer have any reason to do so.
Everyone in our large family has ALWAYS chosen SW over other airlines to fly from Florida up north to visit with parents, children and grandchildren and vice versa…
We appreciated the two free bags and friendly curbside service that the airline always offered us.
Unfortunately, for the new greedy changes that have been implemented, our extensive family and many thousands of other friends will now be forced to shop around for the best airline that will meet our travel needs. Or we’ll even utilize another form of travel. YOUR LOSS…
Even if they’re $5 cheaper than the other airlines they’re mimicking, its not worth supporting the anti-luv.
Was the above rant by Ryan one long run on sentence? If you are going to complain, use proper sentences. It will make it much more effective prose.
I enjoyed flying Southwest. It was and could remain a great airline. It is full of great people. They have been our airline of choice for over twenty years. This move by the new owners has destroyed the loyalty of its long term customer base. It will be interesting to see if Southwest even survives. The last 8 flights we flew with Southwest (all within the last 2 weeks) all were 1/2 full. The new marketing plan seems to be a flop.