Although I have never missed my SW flights I have come very close several times. I am just wondering, suppose my flight departs at 9am and I arrive at the airport at 9:15am, i have already printed my boarding pass, the 9am flight has already departed (lax-sfo), can I take the 10am flight (assuming seats are available) at no additional cost? or will SW charge me a fee for missing my earlier flight?

thanks

yes. called the "flat tire rule"

IMO, South West is probably the best when it comes to missing a flight and getting you on the next available. You shouldn't have any problem.

The unofficial rule ( that means it isn't written down, but no one here has found it to be untrue ) is that if you arrive within 2 hours of your flight, they will put you at no charge on standby for all of the following flights.

It's written down, but not anywhere visible to customers. That means that Southwest could change this policy at any time with no notice. I might worry about that if Southwest ran its business like the other airlines, but it doesn't.

ah i see, thks for info,
however, someone recently told that southwest will charge me the difference between the discount fare and the regular fare if i miss my flight, for example if i paid $49 for a 10am flight and missed it, i would have to pay $80 more ($129 total) to get on the 11am flight, well i guess that person must be mistaken

Southwest will charge you the difference in either of the following circumstances - 1) You want to change your flight to an earlier one either online, over the phone, or at the airport. 2) You want to change your flight to a later one either online or over the phone.

The one circumstance where they don't charge is the one you originally described - where you miss your flight and want to take the next available flight.

oh ic, thanks for clarifying

I believe that you can go on standby for free, but if you miss your flight and want a CONFIRMED seat, you can pay the fare difference. At least that was how it worked when I missed a flight on SWA and really needed to be on the next flight.

So is this true?

Here's my situation: My wife and I have relatively cheap tickets for this Friday @ 7:30pm. She just found out that she is getting off work at noon instead of 5pm, so I was hoping to take an earlier flight that day and not get into CA late Friday night. Is this going to cost me a boatload of cash?

Sorry for such a noob question, but over the last few years I've only flow on full fare tickets (for work), and when I've changed flights it's been free, but now I am not sure if it was free for everyone or just because I was on the max-price ticket.

CLG

You'll have to pay the difference between the fare you paid and the best currently available fare for your flight. Same day and that fare will be the fully refundable fare. Not an issue if you're already paying a high fare or if full fare isn't that expensive for your route (LAX-LAS for example).

The above post is correct. Check the wiki for a lot more details about standby, too. One of the few things where Southwest is different than a lot of the other majors is no free standby for EARLIER flights, but there has been plenty of times an agent will put you on the flight anyway -- but they don't have to for free.

Since the roll out of their new CS2 software (where the standby list is now maintained electronically), it has been my experience that if you want to standby EARLIER on a discounted fare, they will run your credit card (but not process the up charge) at the time they add you to the standby list. The charge to your credit card is only processed if/when they clear you on the standby list and actually give you a boarding pass for the earlier flight. By getting your credit card/payment info when they add you to the standby list, it saves them valuable time when they are actually processing standbys and want to get the flight off the gate without taking a delay.

The above has been my observation on 2-3 occasions; one of the WN participants on this board can confirm whether or not this is now SOP.

When I missed a WN flight by a few minutes, I was given the choice of paying for a confirmed seat on a later flight or flying standby for free.

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Many US carriers allow free standby so long as you still want to travel on the same day, whenever a customer desires this to happen. Most US carriers also have a flat tire rule similar to WN, where if you arrive late to the airport within a reasonable amount of time, your ticket is still valid. The biggest difference between WN and most US carriers, IMO, is WN does not allow the customer to opt to standby for free on earlier or later flights, at the customers wish.

As a customer of primarily AA and UA, if I don't know what time I need to go from A to B, I can purchase the cheapest flight of the day then show up when I want to travel and standby for free. As a WN customer I would need to pay the fare difference between what I paid and full fare.

Many here will point out how WN has a better policy, for the profitability of the airline. IMO, when choosing what airline to fly, you should not choose the carrrier that makes the most profit but rather the airline that costs you the least to meet your travel needs.

(For those who fly very frequently, a benefit of my UA and AA status is they often will confirm me on my desired flight, when I ask to standby, if they have enough space.)

IMO, WN is the best airline for the shareholder and the infrequent flyer, not the very frequent flyer (with the exception of routes where WN alone has frequent full sized jet service).

The flip side of this coin is lack of change fees on WN when you need to change your dates of travel, on WN you only pay the fare difference. If you need time of day flexibility, WN will charge you $ when other airlines are free. If you need date change flexibility, WN will charge you but generally less money than other airlines would.

You forget the frequent flyer who regularly changes plans. WN's full reuse of travel funds is very valuable to me.