Originally Posted by
COTraveler123
Sounds like you would not want to fly Southwest with that status anyway. The avergae WN flyer in a city like BNA or SMF doesn't have your status. A WN flyer without a high level status on an airline like AA would fly them once and see how bad the service is on AA as a non status flyer and go right back to WN even with these changes for the nonstop. AA is still worse on a connection than the new WN on a nonstop.
As someone who lives in BNA, and formerly had status on both AA and UAL (among others), I agree with this. The moment my travel patterns changed such that I was no longer flying enough to earn status, I stopped flying those airlines unless they were the only logical choice. I do have a low-level UAL credit card so that I'm not in the
absolute worst boarding group on the occasions I do fly them, but it's still not something I do if I have a choice. Southwest without status is a lot more tolerable to me than UAL, AA, or Delta without status. And for the factors that matter to me, this set of changes brings Southwest in line with the others, not worse. So I can complain all I want, but I'd only be hurting myself by switching airlines over this. (I will say, this might change when assigned seating arrives. I generally prefer assigned seats, but one of the problems with the other airlines is the cost/difficulty of getting a decent seat without status. If Southwest also replicates that, it's going to be sad. But still probably equivalent rather than worse......)