Tag Archives for southwest airlines.
Southwest Airlines has been boarding 10 passengers at a time, instead of lining up 30 people, throughout the pandemic.
The carrier, which does not pre-assign seats and lets customers pick once they’re on board – so boarding position determines the seat you get – has reverted to its traditional boarding process. Better get that vaccine jab quickly!
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards is offering 20% off the points required for all flight redemptions booked by March 25 for travel through April 30, 2021 using promo code SAVENOW.
Former UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight on Thursday along with his two year old son who wouldn’t wear a mask.
He wrote on Instagram, “F[…] @southwestair got kicked off because my 2 year old son wouldn’t put his mask over his face. This coward flight attendant hid his bitch a[..] in the bathroom.” He didn’t think it was fair to ask his two year old to mask when the two pilots weren’t wearing one.
A former Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 is being offered for sale on Facebook.
The plane was delivered to Southwest in October 1995 and named for the airline’s first Vice President of Maintenance Jack Vidal. It was parked in September 2017. It is currently stored in Victorville, California and it can be yours for an asking price of $550,000.
A customer paid for ‘Early Bird Check-in’ in order to board earlier – their flight was cancelled and they were rebooked on another flight, they didn’t receive the earlier boarding they paid for (they had to buy it again!) or a refund of their early check-in fee.
Naturally Southwest Airlines argues the case can’t be pursued because it’s pre-empted by the Airline Deregulation Act. They lost.
Southwest Airlines filed it annual SEC 10-K and it contains some interesting information about the Rapid Rewards program.
They continue carrying a higher percentage of award passengers than anyone else – by a lot, and even more so during the pandemic – and leveraged the Rapid Rewards program for a $600 million cash advance from Chase.
The card that comes with a companion pass is a great deal – but – consider the current 80,000 point offer that ends February 8.
Meet the spending requirement and you’ll have a minimum of 90,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. These count towards companion pass. As long as your Southwest Rapid Rewards account was open in 2020 you’ll only need 10,000 more qualifying points for a companion pass that’s valid longer – through 12/31/22 – and you have a lot more points.
It’s common for a Southwest flight to end and some passengers to stay on the plane. That’s because on ‘through flights’ passengers connecting on the plane’s next segment stay on board while everyone else gets off. Then a flight attendant counts the through passengers on the plane. They can get off to stretch their legs and reboard (with the same boarding pass as their first flight!) or stay where they’re at.
But it’s very unusual to see everyone getting off the plane, and a passenger just decide to stay. They even melt down in a scream when a flight attendant pressures them to leave.
A couple just got married who met inflight on Southwest Airlines in November 2018. On a 5 a.m. flight from New York to Dallas, he sat in the window seat and spying an open exit row aisle she sat down beside him. She assumed they’d have an empty middle, perfect for the 1381 mile journey.
However Bonny Andrews, a pastor from India visiting to start a new ministry, sat between them in the middle seat – and struck up a conversation. At 5. A. M.
Southwest Airlines hadn’t yet shared reduced requirements for elite status and companion pass in 2021. That’s changed. And like Marriott they’re giving members credit towards status rather than lowering requirements. They’re also extending Companion Passes that were earned in 2019 for 2020.
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 »
