Good plan, but you may want to tweak this slightly.

(1) Check everybody in at T-24 hours. You'll have an EB number - a good one hopefully - and then the other three will be quite a bit higher. If you get lucky and all four are A's, then do what you plan: board with the toddler, knowing that the other two are only a row or two away at most.

(2) If, however, the rest of the family has B's, then you need to board alone and leave the toddler with your husband. He'll need the kid to board between the A and B groups. Southwest *shouldn't* have a problem with dad, grandma, and child boarding together. I think that's generally within accepted etiquette. If you hadn't bought any EBCI yet, I would have bought it for Grandma, knowing that WN would obviously not stop parents and child from boarding between A and B.

I think you should be okay either way. You shouldn't have to engage in any kind of militant seat-saving if you're boarding at A45-ish and the rest of the crew is boarding 15 people later.


And yes, the DEN-SFO segment could be a zoo: you'll have to go to the back of the plane and hope for at least you and the toddler sitting together. But at the end of the day, I look at this as no different than flying a legacy with no elite status. There, you go to the gate holding no seat assignments are get handed four middles 10 minutes before you board. That's no better.

The other thing we liked about WN when the kids were little is that if one got sick (as they often did at that age!), we could just bail on a trip at the last minute and reschedule it for later. On a legacy, you pretty much gotta fly...or go through a process of getting doctor's written statements and such.