Tag Archives for southwest airlines.
Southwest Airlines famously doesn’t show up when searching online travel agency websites. Historically if you’ve wanted to buy a ticket on Southwest, you’ve had to go directly to Southwest to make the purchase. No longer! A simple trick will show Southwest flights in Google Flights searches.
United is running an ad campaign attacking Southwest over its inflight product – because if you don’t have Rapid Rewards elite status, buy a premium fare, or pay for ‘Early Bird check-in’ you need to check in 24 hours prior to your flight to avoid being assigned one of the last boarding positions and therefore one of the last shots at picking a seat on board.
But United is worse.
Southwest Airlines made four announcements about the Rapid Rewards program today. The best change is announcing something that’s been in effect for two years – priority boarding for Companion Pass companions. The worst change is more points required to earn a Companion Pass, but that won’t apply to the airline’s credit card holders. On net these are good updates to know, but not ones to be concerned about.
Roughly speaking you’ll get 1.5 cents per point against base fare, rather than 1.2 cents per points, under this offer. They’ve offered this deal in the past, most recently in March and it’s a good way to provide a good deal while filling up planes, and at the same time not cannibalizing higher fare paid travel that Southwest would otherwise generate – so wins all around.
A Southwest Airlines pilot is suing her airline after the captain in charge of flight WN6607 from Philadelphia to Orlando on August 10, 2020 pleaded guilty “to dead-bolting the cockpit door during a flight and stripping naked in front of her.”
As she explains it, the flight was the first time she’d met the man. He said it was hire retirement flight (though he actually continued to fly for 3 more weeks). And he shared that there was “something he wanted to do” before he retired.
Southwest Airlines quietly counted award travel towards the flight segments needed for award status for travel January 1 – September 19 of this year. They’ve finally emailed members to say they’ve done it, and they’re doing two more things to make status qualification easier.
A Southwest Airlines passenger brought their fish to the Tampa airport. That’s not a pet you can check, and it’s not something that’s usually allowed on board either .Would you believe that a Southwest Airlines agent offered to keep the fish and care for it until the passenger returned – three months later?
A woman wasn’t allow to board a Southwest flight because a flight attendant says she was intoxicated. The passenger, though, says she was just “doing cartwheels and back bends” to entertain a crying little girl.
The flight attendant interpreted the cartwheels as being “engaging, loud, you want[ing] attention from everybody.” And the woman was seen drinking alcohol – one glass of wine.
Southwest Airlines will give you a companion pass valid for two months at the start of next year for booking just two one way flights or a single roundtrip.
A Southwest Airlines pilot threatened to turn the plane around and return to the gate if Cabo-bound passengers didn’t stop airdropping naked photos to each other, as captured in video posted to social media last week.
The pilot warned “Vacation is going to be ruined.” And – doubling down on his dad vibes threatening to turn the car around, he said “whatever that AirDrop thing is” passengers needed to “quit sending naked pictures, and let’s get yourselves to Cabo.”
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
