July 29 marked the beginning of the end for Southwest’s bingo boarding system. That day, the airline started assigning seats, and yes, the plan appears to have changed yet again from the last update I wrote in April. This is a momentous occasion for the airline, and I thought it worthy of a deep dive into what this looks like in practice.
The date I gave you is a little misleading. Yes, seat assignments went live that day, but it’s not for travel until January 27, 2026 and beyond. Why? Southwest’s schedule was only selling through January 26, and it didn’t want to change models midstream. So, when the schedule extended from January 27 into early March, it was extended with the new model having seat assignments for all, right from the beginning.
With this, there are now four Southwest bundles with different seating options:
- Basic – Standard seat assigned at check-in, or you can pay for one in the first five rows behind the wing (on B737-800s/-8s only) or Preferred or Extra Legroom (ELR) any time
- Choice – Standard seat assigned at time of booking, or you can purchase Preferred or ELR
- Choice Preferred – Standard or Preferred seat assigned at time of booking, or you can purchase ELR
- Choice Extra – any seat on the plane can be assigned at booking, including ELR
The change from the last update is what you see in this screwy Basic plan. If you recall when Southwest removed extra legroom seating from behind the wing on the B737-800s and B737-8 MAXs, COO Andrew Watterson said “the [seats] that were formerly Extra Legroom behind the exit row, we’ll turn those into a form of Preferred seats. They will have a little bit extra legroom…”
But now they won’t. Instead, the first five rows behind the exit will be Standard seats that anyone Choice and above can assign for free, but they are Standard seats with a little extra legroom. So if you’re not buying Basic, try to grab one of the first five rows. (This does not exist on the B737-700s.) If you’re in Basic, you can pay to assign those or you can wait to get assigned something randomly at check-in for free. Of course, if you’re in Basic with the current pricing structure, you’re a fool for buying those seats because you’d be better off just paying up to Choice and paying roughly the same amount to get more benefits.
There is no doubt, however, that pricing will change over time. Overall, the pricing is fairly simple for everything at this moment. I fully expect that the airline will get more sophisticated with how it prices seating, especially once it has sales data to guide it. But it had to start somewhere.
There are now four different categories of paid seats with aisles/windows costing more than middles in each section. Pricing doesn’t vary by which fare category you buy. If the seat is included in that brand, you pay nothing. If it’s not, you pay the going rate. One category — the goofy Standard seats with more legroom that Basic people can buy — isn’t worth talking about here. So, let’s focus on ELR, Exit Rows (ELR but cheaper for some reason), and Preferred (sit closer to the front with normal legroom, or, uh, less legroom than you can get in the first five rows of Standard seats).
Base Southwest Seating Prices as Of August 6, 2025
*$10 surcharge for travel outside the Continental US
To the surprise of nobody, the further you fly, the more you pay. And ELR seating prices grow much faster than Preferred seating prices since ELR becomes more valuable the farther you fly.
To be clear, it is not strictly based on distance. Here are the exceptions:
- There is a carve-out for interisland flying in Hawaiʻi that’s notably less expensive than the mileage-based system as shown in the chart
- Travel outside the Continental US has a $10 premium for all flights over 500 miles. It looks like Caribbean under 500 miles is the same as flights within the Continental US, but the only ones I see in that range are Tampa – Havana and Orlando – Nassau
- Southwest has put a $5 premium on all of these numbers for travel over the Presidents Day weekend
This seems like a perfectly reasonable way to start selling seats, but what’s weird is how it interacts with the cost of upgrading to a different fare bundle.
Other than some variation on international routes and interisland in Hawaiʻi, there is currently a universal $60 cost to go from Choice to Choice Preferred. This would include access to a Preferred seat without additional charge. It’s also a fully refundable fare that earns more Rapid Rewards points and comes with early boarding.
From Choice Preferred to Choice Extra, the upsell appears to be $50 or, oddly, only $40 for international flights. That comes with ELR seating, two checked bags, even more Rapid Rewards points, a free drink, free internet, and earlier boarding.
The fact that this doesn’t have an escalating price difference by mileage but individual seat prices do is strange, and it creates some odd opportunities. For example, if you’re traveling longer-haul international and want extra legroom, you better buy up to Choice Extra. After all, international flights over 1,500 miles will cost you $101 to get an ELR… but it’s only about $100 to get Choice Extra with all those other benefits.
I would go as far to say that if you are planning on buying an ELR seat, then you should just about always upgrade to Choice Extra on flights over 1,000 miles considering all the extra goodies you get. Under 1,000 miles, well, the difference in price gets steeper so it’s not as clear.
Right now, the Southwest schedule only goes through March 4, so there is just a little over a month out for sale under this plan. It’s a good test, but soon enough there will be extensions to the schedule and Southwest will learn to get more sophisticated. You have to start somewhere when you’re building up from scratch, and this isn’t a terrible way to do it. It just gets a little complex around the edges.
There’s a lot more going on at Southwest these days including Q2 earnings, forward guidance that analysts don’t believe, a new board chair, new service to St Thomas, and Peet’s Coffee onboard. I’m sure somebody cares about that last one, but it’s not me. Anyway, we tackle all of this on this week’s episode of The Air Show, so have a listen to what I think is actually one of our funnier episodes. Jon steals the show with talk about carrot sticks. Seriously.
