Cranky, did any of the survey screens mention the senior fare?

Nope, not that I saw. I would be surprised if the senior fare went anywhere, but then again, I have no real clue.

In either case, I think they need to be very careful about not impacting their Fare Reuseability feature. I regularly “bank” hundreds of dollars with SWA fully understanding that my leisure travel plans months in advance may change. I am always comfortable paying the prevailing fare bucket weeks in advance if I need any changes down the road. And if I cancel, 12 months from the date of original purchase is enough time to burn the cash. Right now, I have August SWA tickets on a RT that I’ll probably, but not certainly take. That money is good through next January. I am certain that I would travel less if I couldn’t take advantage of sales when they pop up, toss a leisure trip in my “bank”, and then go or not go based on future circumstances.

I do think I agree with you that a nominal change fee of $25 might be in order for flights scheduled just a few days out, say 7 or less. Not 30 or 45 when the airline could really care less.

WN does need to introduce some form of same-day standby (but, like Million Miler, I once stood by on an earlier flight from MSY to DAL, and they didn’t ask me to pay anything – and I wasn’t flying on a full fare). $25 would be fair, in my opinion, though maybe they could waive it in the event of a “no harm, no foul situation” – lots of empty seats on the earlier flight, your original later flight is overbooked and they need your seat, etc.

On the chart for Business Select fare it says be in the first group to board (A1-A15). It makes it sound like they would only sell 15 of the highest price seats as if 16 people bought this fare then 1 of those would not be in the first group and would not get a benefit paid for.

My guess is that they’ve never had more than 15 people interested in buying Business Select on a single flight, but if it gets to that point, I’m sure they’d bump it up. Really, I think a lot of these things are placeholders, just used to figure out what matters most to people. The details can always be worked out later if the feedback is good.

BTW, I don’t recall a sarcastic comment – sometimes written word doesn’t convey true meaning very well. I hope that hasn’t discouraged you from participating again.

Dan wrote:

What is the difference between boarding pass availability and early/confirmed boarding?

Boarding pass availability is when you are allowed to check in. Right now, it’s 24 hours before your flight. Early Boarding is the program where you can pay more to be automatically checked-in at the front of the line.

Dan wrote:

On “New Fare A” a same-day confirmed flight change results in no fare difference, but standby does?

I wouldn’t worry about the details here. I imagine these questions have been specifically constructed to elicit certain responses, but if they decide to do something like this, I would hope it would be more rational.

Oliver wrote:

I understand this is just a survey…but I do remember hearing that changes ARE going to happen. I’m just wondering when this was going to happen. Sometime this year? The Spring? The Fall? When Pigs fly?

They will be relaunching Rapid Rewards for sure, and that should happen this year. Whether or not it looks like what they’ve shown here remains to be seen, but no dates have been set. I believe the way it works is this: Southwest says they want to do something, they give a tentative time frame, they blame tech problems, they launch much later than planned.

Don wrote:

I don’t see what the problem is if the flight is not full, you are doing it online and paying the current price–it is no loss to the company.

If neither your original or the new flight is full, then there is no loss. But if the flights are full, then there is somewhat of a cost. I think that a $25 change fee would adequately cover that (pulling this completely out of the air), but certainly not $150.

Scott wrote:

There would also be no reason for anybody to purchase the Anytime fare if standby was allowed for discount fares

This has already been addressed, but there is absolutely a reason. Standby isn’t a guarantee, especially now with load factors approaching 80% on the airline. I would love to see the data, if there is any, on how many people who would pay $25 to standby would be willing to buy up to a higher fare. My guess is that Southwest could actually make more money by getting a higher number of people to pay the low standby fee than they can get from people buying up.

million miler wrote:

So really, what is the policy? I can play by the rules, but have trouble with inconsistency.

The policy is definitely that you have to pay up to the current fare if you want to change. I wonder if the triangle routes get a little more lax since it’s like a shuttle operation? Dunno.

I am very confused about this one. First let me clearly state that I have very limited experience with Southwest in the past few years. Maybe once or twice per year.

On at least two occasions I have arrived early at Dallas for morning flight to Houston. Each time I naively walked up to the gate of a flight that was boarding and was obviously half empty. Each time I was told I would have the pay the difference. Fair enough, everything seemed to be running smoothly so I just declined and went and ate breakfast till time to board the flight I booked.

No hurt feelings, my meeting wasn’t going to start any earlier in Houston just because I got there early. If weather was looking bad and delays seemed imminent I would have probably paid to be certain of being on time.

However later that afternoon in Houston, I got back to Hobby early went up to the gate of a flight about to depart and was allowed to board – no questions asked. As far as I could tell they didn’t even check the fare. Just waved me on.

On a couple of occasions I can recall being directed to a special Stand By area in an unused gate space at Hobby where they had a whole group of employees just processing requests and sending passenger to the appropriate gate for the next flight to Dallas. Again, no question asked about fare paid. At least not in a way that was obvious to me.

So really, what is the policy? I can play by the rules, but have trouble with inconsistency.

By the way, Off Topic, but the way they dedicated an area to Stand By’s at Hobby seemed to make a lot of sense. With flights to Dallas spaced as closely as every 15 minutes at peak times it kept things flowing and avoided confusion. Especially if the 5:00 was running 10 minutes late on the inbound, while the 5:15 was loaded and ready to go five minutes early… Just make sure every flight goes out full and keep ‘em moving. Sort of a bus terminal experience, but if that is your business model, embrace it

No free same-day standby may be a common complaint heard about Southwest, but there’s a method to the madness. It protects the integrity of the fare system by preventing passengers from simply purchasing the lowest fare available on their date of travel and then showing up at the airport for their preferred flight. There would also be no reason for anybody to purchase the Anytime fare if standby was allowed for discount fares – Southwest has to protect the benefits of that fare for the passengers who paid for it. And since so many people complain about it, it’s clearly something they value. How dare Southwest charge for something of value.

Sure there is.

“Sorry, that flight’s full, we’re not allowing you to board standby, you’ll have to fly on your original flight.”

I experienced that once, trying to go standby to DFW on AA during the day for an evening ticket- a plane went mechanical and I ended up wasting a bunch of time at the airport, because all the displaced passengers from that plane went ahead of me, and rightly so.

Also- did you know that you can change same-day on a Southwest Rapid Reward if there’s space available, at no fee? I recently did this to get in to DAL on an earlier flight. But if that had been a PAID ticket… I’d have been charged a lot of money. Kinda weird, huh?

My feeling is that if you’re willing to play Airport Lotto, sure, go ahead. Just keep in mind that saving $50 on the ticket to take a chance on airport standby may mean you get to spend a bunch of useless hours at the airport.

The other thing is a nominal charge for confirmed same-day change (Alaska charges $25) IF there’s enough open seats isn’t going to cost Southwest very much- you can always hold back a couple of seats for last-minute passengers if revenue management thinks it’s worth it, and you might as well collect an extra $25 rather than let the seat go empty. You could even say “no standby, but if there are enough open seats on the day of travel, we’ll let you change for $(insert dollar figure here)”.