Early Bird Check-in for Southwest Airlines

We will be flying Southwest from Denver to Seattle for our upcoming cruise. It will cost us a total of $60. Have you ever used this service and would you recommend it?

We will be flying Southwest from Denver to Seattle for our upcoming cruise. It will cost us a total of $60. Have you ever used this service and would you recommend it?

I use it every time I cruise. It especially helps for your return flight home because it keeps you from having to worry about checking in 24 hours prior to your flight. And you can do your boarding pass on your smartphone and not have to worry about printing anything.

We don't travel Southwest without it. You get A boarding which means you can pretty much get the seating you want versus B or C when you take what's left (normally a middle seat).

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We did it last cruise. This cruise our return flight with JetBlue and paying for one bag each was cheaper than Southwest and paying to check in early.

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We don't travel Southwest without it. You get A boarding which means you can pretty much get the seating you want versus B or C when you take what's left (normally a middle seat).

 

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We always use it for the return flight only so no worries about the 24 hour check-in. Well worth the money.

I fly Southwest a lot, and have never paid extra for the early bird. I check in exactly 24 hours ahead of time and many times get an "A" number. Even if I don't we have never had trouble finding decent seats.

Now on a cruise depending where you are, you may not have the ability to check in 24 hours in advance.

If all tickets are not hooked together, you could just do early bird on one of them and save a seat for other passanger. We don't do, but sort of thought about it before.

Dori

I use the early check-in for my return flight since I do not access the internet on board my cruise.

I check in 24 hrs ahead for my flight to the port city and generally get a late A or early B.

I fly Southwest all the time and I never pay for Early Bird boarding. If you can check-in exactly 24 hours before your flight, you will most likely get a boarding number between A30 and B15. With that kind of boarding number, you will be able to get your choice of a window or aisle seat, whichever you prefer.

In cases where I cannot check-in exactly 24 hours in advance (e.g. on a cruise), I just ask my daughter to check-in for me. If you don't have a dependable daughter like me :) and can't bear the thought of a middle seat, then paying for Early Bird is your only option.

If all tickets are not hooked together, you could just do early bird on one of them and save a seat for other passanger. We don't do, but sort of thought about it before.

 

Dori

I'm sure you haven't done it because you realize that it's not fair. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's cheating. If someone on a Southwest flight tells me they are saving a seat, I politely tell them that it's not allowed and sit there.

We usually do but will be flying with a LO this time so we will family board with the baby.

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WN does not have a no-seat-saving policy. What they say is "choose any available seat" without defining "available seat". Is it available is there is a book (or whatever) there? That can get argued either way. Seems a recipe for confrontation, which is not a good thing on an aircraft nowadays.

Getting back on topic, we'll do the 24-hour check-in going to the embarkation port, and get EB coming back. Once on the cruise I'd prefer not to deal with checking in 24-hours before the flight. So in the OPs case, we would not get it DEN-SEA, but would for SEA-DEN.

In my case, it's a vacation mindset/cost tradeoff. $30 (2 X $15) I can swallow to not be bothered. $60 (4 X $15) I'm not sure I could justify. Different folks will have different notions of the value of EB.

I use it overtime. With it you don't have to worry about trying to check in precisely 24 hours before your flight to get an early boarding assignment and it places you in priority order when the assignments are made. I highly recommend it of you are concerned about where you will seat and getting luggage stored.

Keith

When we traveled with friends they did EB and we did not. I checked us in at the 24 mark and we were ahead of them in an A position. :eek:

The last time we flew SW we did EB and we were in a B position. I wrote SW a kind letter of complaint and they refunded the money to us. It is a crap shoot.

I know they are 3 and 3 but is the -700 better or the -800 we would be flying from BUF to MCO and how do you book online with enough points for one way for one person and paying for the way back and RT for the other person

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I know they are 3 and 3 but is the -700 better or the -800 we would be flying from BUF to MCO and how do you book online with enough points for one way for one person and paying for the way back and RT for the other person

You do it in 3 tickets:

Free one-way ticket person A

Pay one-way ticket person A

Pay round-trip ticket person B

When we traveled with friends they did EB and we did not. I checked us in at the 24 mark and we were ahead of them in an A position. :eek:

The last time we flew SW we did EB and we were in a B position. I wrote SW a kind letter of complaint and they refunded the money to us. It is a crap shoot.

This is not how it normally works or is designed to work. Your friends must have had some glitch. I'm glad they got their money back. We usually buy EB and usually get somewhere between A 20 and 30. A 1 through 15 are reserved for more expensive tickets and many times there are not 15 people in that portion of the line. Sometimes we have been in A 31 to 60 but are usually able to still find good seats. I have never received a B number with EB, but it can happen.

It is a crap shoot whether you will need it, but it gives me one less thing to worry about.

We don't travel Southwest without it. You get A boarding which means you can pretty much get the seating you want versus B or C when you take what's left (normally a middle seat).

As long as the flight originates where you get on, this should be the case, however, if your plane originated in another city and you are getting on at an intermediate stop, you may have A25 and get a middle seat. Although this probably doesn't happen much at cities that cruises originate from. I have seen a BWI-STL-LAS flight on SWA have over 100 people stay on the flight at STL. If you were boarding in STL and had A25, you would probably get a middle seat.

I know they are 3 and 3 but is the -700 better or the -800 we would be flying from BUF to MCO

The oldest -800 is about 4 years old, most of the -700s are at least 10 years old. Also, the -800s have two exit rows instead of one. All of their new deliveries in the last couple of years have been -800s.

This is not how it normally works or is designed to work. Your friends must have had some glitch. I'm glad they got their money back. We usually buy EB and usually get somewhere between A 20 and 30. A 1 through 15 are reserved for more expensive tickets and many times there are not 15 people in that portion of the line. Sometimes we have been in A 31 to 60 but are usually able to still find good seats. I have never received a B number with EB, but it can happen.

 

It is a crap shoot whether you will need it, but it gives me one less thing to worry about.

They did not get the refund, we did. :)

They did not get the refund, we did. :)

Wait. You did not purchase EB and got in front of your friends. What did SW owe you?

Wait. You did not purchase EB and got in front of your friends. What did SW owe you?

There are two different scenarios in my post. The first was that our friends purchased EB and we checked in at the 24 mark. We ended up ahead of them in the A group.

In the second, we did pay for EB and ended up in a B group. SW refunded the EB charge to us, after a very kind email from me. Paying for EB and ending up in B was not acceptable to us. :)

OK. Sorry I misunderstood.

OK. Sorry I misunderstood.

Oh that's ok...:)

WN does not have a no-seat-saving policy.

Huh. I was about to tell you "I think you're incorrect" (as I could swear I've heard the announcement for "no seat saving"), but that's apparently the case

http://forum.elliott.org/threads/southwest-saving-seats.2758/

In any event, you probably don't want to start a flight annoying your future seatmate by sitting in a seat she's saving. OTOH, it's definitely uncool if you do it in a primo position.

August 4 is when the new schedules will be out till April 24th.

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