rove312

Story at http://consumerist.com/2014/11/21/so...rity-boarding/ . The article shows incomplete information on many topics familiar to readers of this board, starting with:
Grammatical issue aside, there's no mention of A-list. Aside from that, regulars here are familiar with Serendipitous Early Boarding. One can argue about whether that should be allowed to happen, but SWA does as promised in assigning numbers at T-36. People who check in starting at T-24 will mostly get worse numbers, but some are lucky and get a better one.

ETA: That's a comment on the article; the actual legal complaint linked from there has SEB as part of the complaint.

ursine1

This should be interesting. IMHO, the most egregious component of the product is that Southwest places no cap on the number sold, effectively promising "Better Boarding Position" to everyone on the plane.

GottaLuvCruising

I expected this was only a matter of time. I mentioned this option on Southwest's FB page; it was promptly deleted and I was blocked from their page for some time.

I expect a lot of disgruntled EBCI folks will jump on board. The product is a good option given Southwest's pathetic boarding / seating and the fact that they do absolutely nothing to protect the value of what they are selling.

InkUnderNails

I read a lot of the legal complaint. It does mention A-list and A-list preferred, it discusses BS and the BS upgrades accurately and even gets into "BAGS FLY FREE" herein referred to as BFF, to keep with the spirit of the complaint.

The BFF angle is interesting. The complaint says that BFF is fraudulent as the EBCI and BS upgrade fees are used to keep BFF but it is tortured logic. The filing is 38 pages, but a lot is repeated over and over and over. The meat is in the first 20 pages or so. It is an interesting read. It sounds almost like a rant thread here written in legalese.

nsx

The next class action suit will be against airlines who won't assign you an aisle seat and then open one up later when a passenger no-shows or is upgraded.

Seriously, SEB works exactly the same as a no-show for an assigned seat: The next person to ask for the spot gets it.

The complaint says: "If these intentional misrepresentations, fraudulent concealments, and deceptive business practices were known to the public, then Defendant SOUTHWEST’S windfall of revenue would not exist"

Really? If a product doesn't work the same people will keep buying it year after year because its description is misleading? Apparently the plaintiff works in politics.

I fail to see how a product which claims to check you in early for a flight and then checks you in early is deceptive. The product does not promise a better boarding position than absolutely everyone who checks in later, because everyone at Southwest knows that would be false. It's too bad the Plaintiff inferred a falsehood, but there's very little excuse for not understanding the product after you've used it even once.

ursine1

A more accurate analogy would be an airline who charges you a fee to select that aisle seat, then instead gives it away to another passenger for free, leaving you to try to select another one if available.

nsx

Southwest didn't sell a boarding position. It sells a check-in priority. You get whatever slot there is at 30 to 36 hours before flight. Just like asking for the aisle seat.

If you only ask at one time you are not guaranteed to get an aisle seat that opens later. There is no waiting list for aisle seats. Southwest didn't promise a waiting list for boarding positions, nor would implementing that be practical.

rsteinmetz70112

The product may be only early checkin, but Southwest promotes it on the basis of early boarding citing, among other things, better access to overhead bin space.

nsx

I doubt there are any cases of EBCI buyers not being able to find an aisle or a window seat. I doubt any EBCI buyer finds the overhead bins full. So what exactly did this plaintiff miss out on? As nearly as I can tell, it's only sitting down 20 or 30 seconds earlier, and getting off the plane up to a minute earlier.

Had the Plaintiff not bought EBCI and not checked in at T-24, he would have gotten a middle seat, possibly without overhead bin space. He can't claim EBCI is worthless (if it were nobody would buy it). He can only claim that Southwest's website persuaded him by omission that EBCI would work better than it does. Welcome to the reality of marketing.

SpeedyDelivery

While the circumstances are outside the scope of the lawsuit, I think that has likely to have happened more than once on pre-Wright expiration flights with super heavy amounts of throughs, like DAL-MCI-MDW. 50+ throughs were not uncommon in my experience.

ursine1

Had the plaintiff not bought EBCI and checked in at any time, he could still have gotten a better position than if he had bought EBCI.

The claim isn't that EBCI is worthless. It's that its worth is devalued by Southwest's system of re-assigning cancelled positions. And that Southwest, by omission of that fact in it's marketing, misrepresents the value of EBCI. It promises "better boarding position" and "earlier access to overhead bins" thru the payment of an extra fee, but in actuality, paying that fee doesn't guarantee those things since other passengers can also receive them -- ahead of you -- without paying the fee at all.

It will be interesting to see whether a judge feels this claim has merit. And if it moves ahead, if Southwest will fight or settle the suit. I've seen much more frivolous class action's settled, and often for significant sums of money. With Southwest fighting the FAA on the fine for inadequate maintenance, it's believed they are taking a harder line approach to legal action… but that hard line doesn't come without very real costs.

Amicus

I am waiting for a class action suit to arise based on the dubious benefits of being A list, or as in my case, A list Preferred.

Benefit listed: Priority Boarding. Be one of the first to board with the best available boarding pass.

UMM, not so much. I can't recount the number of times that I have received A 17 or 18, assuming I 'd have one of the best available boarding positions. Arrive at the airport with A 17 in hand, and then have to listen to the gate agent hawk $40 "upgrades" to get in line ahead of me. Thanks WN.

Just to clarify, I seldom end up in my preferred rows these days, being exit row or bulkhead. Bulkhead rows are now often taken up by the multitude of pre=boarders. Exit rows, if not already taken by throughs, are then snapped up by the $40 upgraders.

On flights in and out of LAS, this happens to me nearly every single time, since it is nearly a 3 hour flight, and people don't like their non-status B -10 pass.

Okay, I get the earning bonus, but right now I'm sitting on a half million RR points that may not get used before the next points devaluation.

ursine1

I mentioned the possibility of a suit for this very reason when Priority Boarding was first introduced. I'm somewhat surprised this hasn't happened.

Amicus

Indeed. Your reasoning in your prior post is solid, and applies to both EBCi and WN "elite" benefits: That the value of each "benefit" is not worthless, but in fact is unfairly devalued by WN's business practices.

rsteinmetz70112

If the sole basis is SEP, Southwest has only their own IT to blame. It would seem to be actually easier to write code that did not reissue numbers, unless they recycled some seat number assignment code.