juanvaldez

Friends,

My friend is flying tomorrow on a WN flight. When she attempted to check in, she received a message stating that she's not eligible for online check-in.

I tried for her and got the same message. When she called reservations, they were unable to do it also. They told her that she needs to check in at the ticket desk, in-person.

Since the reservation might have been randomly flagged by the airline or TSA for whatever reason, do you know if Southwest has any formal or informal policy with respect to boarding position?

She suspects she will get a boarding pass position that will relegate her to a bad middle seat.

Can she ask for pre-boarding authorization due to this inconvenience? Or does Southwest automatically assign a boarding pass position when the person attempts to check-in online, even if it's denied? Then they just need to clear the formalities in-person at the airport?

Thoughts?

jrpaguia

Technically, no.

The only ways for WN to assign her a boarding position ahead of time is:

1. She bought a Biz Select ticket
2. She's A-List
3. She bought EBCI

juanvaldez

Thanks - I suspected there's no good way they have in dealing with a situation like this.

I'll tell her to go buy some crutches from Wal-Mart

dlaue

I may be wrong....but....I don't think you can use on-line check in if you did not buy your ticket on-line.

jrpaguia

No need to buy anything. After going through security, if she happens to stub her toe or something and slooowly approaches the Gate Agent with a limp.....

formeraa

I had this happen several times a couple of years ago (before the numbered boarding passes). It's due to a "possible" match with the super-secret TSA database of suspected terrorists. Fortunately, I finally got a WN agent who took my driver's license and typed for about 5 minutes. After that, it never happened again.

What I would suggest is to get to the airport a bit early and see what she gets or, as the OP suggested, get some crutches.

AFAM-DFW

Another thing that might help is to enter a rapid rewards number in the reservation if there isn't one now. A couple of years ago, my wife was flying on my companion pass so I didn't bother entering her RR number. She got selected for additional screening. I gave the desk agent her RR#, they entered it in the syatem and the reprinted boarding pass didn't have the screening code.

Might not work in your case but something to check.

expert7700

Not sure if this applies to your situation, but if you booked a one way and the price is still the same, change their flight from a one way to a round trip (with the cheapest return possible, even to a different city)..... Just remember to cancel the return to get some credit to reuse.

juanvaldez

She's flying one of the wanna get away fares she booked months ago, so no chance of getting a cheaper fare. She did purchase it on-line and entered her RR number, so it's all good.

It's unfortunate that you have situations like this with Southwest. Realistically, there's always a chance that TSA or the airline will flag a reservation for some reason. But with every other airline in the US, since you typically have assigned seating and boarding zones based on the seat or your status, it's not a problem. This is a problem unique to Southwest, since if you are prevented from checking in online, you're totally hosed with respect to your boarding position.

They really should come up with a method to correct for a situation like this. Like if you attempt to check in and it's blocked, the system should still assign you the number you would have had, and then it is just manually cleared at the airport once they verify whatever the heck they need to.

Come on Southwest - rather than figure out how to expire drink coupons even faster, why don't you try to fix this?

rosh325

I've had the same OLCI problem for a few months now and Southwest told me to contact the TSA and get a Redress #. I was told that the only way for me to get a good boarding number would be to either come to the airport 24 hours before my flight (yeah right) or to buy early bird check in. By getting the EBCI, I still wouldn't be able to print my boarding pass, but at least I would get a good # when I was automatically checked in. When I asked SW to comp me EBCI, since their boarding system inherently relegated me to "C", I was told they couldn't do anything and that it was the TSA's problem, not them.

Unfortunately your friend might have to go the redress route.

Dianne47

You might think this amusing, or you might be serious. I can't tell if you're joking, being flippant, or if you really mean what you said.

I can assure you that people who are truly disabled or elderly and actually need to preboard do NOT think such comments are funny. People pretending to be disabled when they aren't are lowlifes.

JerryFF

Sorry, but this is not correct. You can use OLCI no matter how you purchase your ticket. You can only purchase EBCI online, but that can be done at any time, either when you purchase the ticket online or afterwards, if you purchase the ticket over the phone.

Marylou

On several trips with my SIL, she always got the same message. Turned out it was because she had selected the senior fare and they needed to confirm her age with her ID. I don't know why it wasn't recorded in her record after the first time, but it kept happening.

robbert

I don't think O/W or R/T makes much difference, I always book O/W for my weekly trips and have yet to see any problems checking-in on the website. This may have more to do with being on some type of watch list.

CDKing

Did she remember to enter the Secure Flight Data when she bought her ticket?