constar

Something weird happened last night when I checked my SO into our WN flight MSP-DEN... I'm AL+ and she is not. When I checked her in, she got A18. I was like "wow, there's no AL or AL+ on this flight and nobody purchased EB". Then, I "checked in" to my flight (knowing my boarding position was reserved 12 hours ago), and lo and behold, I'm A19. ...? Has this happened to anyone else? Can't say that I'm mad at it...

Only thing I did differently than normal was add her companion ticket via phone versus doing it on southwest.com. Has anyone else run into this "issue"? Thoughts?

Just thought I'd share!

alggag

The A-lister who had had A18 cancelled their reservation and your CP just happened to get it.

NextTrip

If A18 cancelled after that boarding position was already assigned, it became available. Your companion was the next to check in and got it.

FindAWay

Yup. It happens from time-to-time. We have a name for it: Serendipitous Early Boarding ("SEB"). It happens in instances like alggag & NextTrip describes.

Here's more recent threads like your's:
Travel partner with no status got higher boarding number than me (A-List)
Companion gets better boarding number
Companion Pass / Boarding # strangeness
Serendipitous Early Boarding (was: Boarding # Anomaly)

constar

Ah, I see. Convenient! Thanks for the insight everyone!

synergistic

=) I got this recently while flying with my SO and my disabled father - on a flight I didn't book until twelve hours out. It was awesome, I sent my SO with my dad for preboard and was on quickly enough to get a seat up front with them.

connor35

Yep, your partner just got lucky.

Though I never understand why this happens. Why don't they just assign numbers in order, and if an A-lister cancels, the other A-listers just effectively move up (because there is now no A18).

That seems to be better service to their most loyal customers.

FindAWay

One reason they may not do it the way you mention is because it would lead to more late C & even C-60+ boarding positions (since the non-fill-in method would likely apply to non-A-Listers too given WN's known IT difficulties/limitations...when those with BPs in the Bs & Cs cancel/change flights), which would probably anger more customers since it is a minority of folks who fly WN that understand the mechanics of SEB.

ursine1

With the A-B-C / 1-60 system, there are potentially 180 positions for every flight. Even if -zero- of the BS positions are needed, there are still 165 positions available, and the majority of Southwest planes seat 143. Leaving at least 22 positions for late- and over-booked allocations.

C60+ boarding positions already happen, most commonly on flights utilizing a 175-seat 800. It seems the Southwest boarding method didn't anticipate larger planes, but I guess that's what you get when you only spend millions of dollars researching a new boarding scheme. However, there's no reason they can't simply continue using C60+ positions, or even create a "D" category to adapt the system for use as the fleet of 800s grows larger.

There's no need to re-allocate positions. It's a bad practice, that devalues the integrity of the boarding system, as well as both A-List and Early Bird Check In. In fact, there's currently a lawsuit being litigated that references the re-allocation in regards to EBCI.

Southwest would do well to eliminate the practice.

Exactly.

Tanic

answered

FindAWay

I would also prefer the practice of re-using of vacated BPs to be abandoned. But, it is the current practice in place. And, changing it would involve some costs (programmers don't work for free). So, I can understand why WN may think the benefits of changing the practice is not worth the costs involved in doing so (mostly because the vast majority of WN passengers probably don't even know it happens...look at the poster who started this thread - OP is ALP and holds a CP...likely a frequent WN flier).

And, on the (long, long) list of IT fixes that I wish WN would enact, this is not at the top of my list.

PAX62

Why change it? It is not a negative to anyone, it is only a benefit to the luck person that happens to randomly get a good position. Your position does not change because someone else cancelled and they filled that slot.

You want a better position? pay for a BS fare.

ursine1

Yes, it is a negative, as I already mentioned. For A-Listers when an non-A-Lister is given a position ahead of them, and for EBCI purchasers when a non-EBCI purchaser is given a position ahead of them. (This is the basis of the current lawsuit regarding deceptive advertising of EBCI.)

While it's true that someone's position number doesn't change in the current system, the integrity of the system is compromised. The order should be maintained, not based on actual position number, but on the stated priority ranking:

Preboards
BS
A-Listers
EBCI
General boarding, etc.

One potential compromise would be for the system to only re-allocate those positions that follow the last EBCI passenger.

Or, ideally, reserve open A-List positions for A-Listers and EBCI positions for EBCI purchasers.

But we all know that this is far beyond the IT capabilities of Southwest.

Therefore, the simplest and most fair thing to do is to not re-allocate positions at all.

ursine1

I wonder what the cost is in defending the lawsuit?