southwest 'early bird checkin' worth it?

[JohnT]

@pancakes3

As someone who doesn’t have many claustrophobic concerns, and a victim of full flights just about every flight I’ve been on, I don’t see the allure of priority seating. I either have my pick of seats, sit on the tarmac for an extra 15-20 mins, be packed anyway, and the noise factor is negligible with headphones.

I don’t even board when they call my row anymore. I just wait until the line dies all the way down and get in line when they’re about to close up shop. An extra 15 mins where I don’t have to breathe recycled air. I guess with SW with no assigned seating you’d be stuck at the back with the bathrooms but if you sit in the back you also get to chat with the flight attendants in their jumpseats.

That’s precisely what I do. (I don’t fly SW because in my years here in San Antonio I’ve never seen cost savings over Orbitz. I think SW is crazy expensive - looking now, the same $400 round trip on Orbitz is over a grand on Southwest.com.)

Nice thing about it, if you’re the last person to board, you have all the remaining empty seats to choose from. Don’t want to sit next to the engine in 37E? There’s an empty spot in 10D for ya!

[RTFirefly]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Regular SW flyer concurs:

[ul]
[li] Early bird is not worth the money. It’s a shuck. As the whole preselling of the A group is Southwest’s only bend so far towards the nickel-and-diming other carriers now do, it’s a pretty small inconvenience.[/li][li] Check in the minute you’re allowed to (24 hours before flight time) and you will very likely get an A-group.[/li][li]The preboarding of families etc. is not new and goes back at least 20 years. I’ve never seen it seriously abused in all that time.[/li][/ul]

My wife and I think early bird IS worth the money, but to each his own. Life with a kid has simply made it harder to keep track of a lot of little details, and we’ve come to recognize that hitting the 24-hour mark is one of those. It’s worth the extra change to not worry about this.

But you’re right in terms of Southwest v. the other airlines. We usually pack 4 suitcases when traveling. That would be $100 each way on most other airlines; on Southwest, they’re free. Paying for early-bird is $37.50 each way for the three of us.

During the past 5 years (i.e. since the arrival of the Firebug in our lives), family boarding has been between the A and B groups, as Algher already noted. It’s also limited to families with kids 4 and under. So ever since the Firebug turned 5 awhile back, we’ve been doing the early-bird check-in.

@pancakes3

I guess with SW with no assigned seating you’d be stuck at the back with the bathrooms but if you sit in the back you also get to chat with the flight attendants in their jumpseats.

No, you’d be stuck in a middle seat in some random row. Even if it was the back row, you’d have to talk over the person in the aisle seat to talk with the attendants.

[RTFirefly]

I can see that for a lot of people, the answer is just not to fly Southwest. The main reason my wife and I fly Southwest is that her family is in central Florida, but we live in the Maryland suburbs of DC, so the majority of our travel is on the BWI-TPA route. Southwest has always had direct flights on this route, but nobody else does with any regularity. We rather strongly prefer not having to switch planes in Charlotte or Atlanta, and have a 2:20 flight not become a 4-hour trip.

[Terr]

@Tim_R.Mortiss

But then when boarding actually began, a previously unmentioned rule was hauled out: families with small children FIRST, even before boarding card #1. And a family could be any number of adults and one child. Needless to say, I was the LAST person allowed on the plane, and got a horrible seat.

I fly Southwest all the time. Not once have I seen more than 3 families get in during “family boarding”. And nowadays, family boarding is between groups A and B.

[Voyager]

@Dewey_Finn

I wonder if there’s a PC or smartphone app that could automate checking in precisely 24 hours in advance. (Although I’m slightly annoyed that this was mentioned in the thread, as I’ve made a point of not mentioning the advantage of doing so to anyone.)

I don’t think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. (I use the same technique as you, btw.)

Early bird was better before I had a smartphone app, and so was often not near my computer or a web connection 24 hours before. Or if I don’t want to get up early the morning before to check in for a morning flight.

[SpoilerVirgin]

@Mama_Zappa

How could you have been the last person? Was every single other passenger truly in the above categories???

Yeah, I was going to ask if he was flying to Disneyland, or possibly a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers convention (or whatever the kids are into these days).

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

@SpoilerVirgin

Yeah, I was going to ask if he was flying to Disneyland, or possibly a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers convention (or whatever the kids are into these days).

As I mentioned, they allowed ANY number of family members to board with a single child. And everyone else had one, or maybe just made friends with a family and pretended; it’s not like they did a DNA check to see if they were all related. This was years ago; I’m not claiming it is still that way. I don’t know and WON’T know as they have pissed away any chance to ever have my business again. Grumble, grumble, grumble.