southwest early bird boarding is a sham
 

Early boarding is a sham and just a revenue generator for southwest airlines. I purchased round trip tickets in NOV. for a flight in june. ( seven months in advance) I purchased early boarding in NOV. I was given a B6 boarding pass. I checked with others on line for boarding and found that people ( several) in FRONT of us purchased their early boarding last week. I found out from southwest that those who buy the cheaper tickets get placed in line behind those who bought more expensive tickets. So if you buy a fare sale do not waste your money and purchase early boarding as it will give you little benefit. By the way their new and improved rapid rewards program is only an improvement if they never had a program. It now takes about twice as many flights as it did previously to earn a free flight.

I'm afraid the information you were given is accurate. Your EBCI boarding number was based on when it was purchased when they first rolled it out Sept 2009. Now everything at Southwest is revenue-based. It stinks for some of us.

But imagine just where your spot in line would have been without it?

FYI same thing happened to us Sept 2010 - chatting with folks around us because we were surprised to get such a high number when we purchased within minutes of the date opening. I actually wrote to Southwest but did not receive an explanation. I learned the cold hard facts here.

I look at EBCI as a last-resort option if you're out of the country or just so far out of cell phone coverage that there's no possible way to get checked in the day before the flight.

In that extremely rare case, I look at the $10 as keeping you out of C territory. B6 is good enough to keep you out of a middle seat. The sort order within EBCI isn't terribly material, but it makes sense that it goes by fare within that group.

I don't think it's a sham but I do think WN should more completely explain the exact process and algorithm, making it clear where EBCI boards in relation to BS and A-List and how the order is sorted within EBCI. (I've seen EBCI buyers ask a GA why they don't have A1.)

Most of us can either get to an computer, internet enabled phone or find a friend to check us in at T-24.

I think EBCI has the most value when taking a flight that's likely to have a lot of connecting passengers. Passengers checking in at T-24 get BPs for both flights 24 hours before their first flight.

My experience this week AUS-LAX nonstop and return, was A28 and A39 using EBCI. Tickets were purchased about 5 days in advance. Going I was able to get the seat with all the legroom, and returning, a near COS took the window so the middle stayed empty and might have been the only empty middle on the flight. I did use my trick of opening up the wsj paper in a big way to help mask the seat being available.

So EBCI works for me and I consider it a good value. In contrast, Mrs. K and I had to purchase last minute tckts on AA 1/2 of which was on AA regional. Couldn't get seats in advance due to the fare we purchased - only at the gate. We also had the privilege of paying to check bags.

Sorry if I'm missing something - I'm starting to fly more WN after several years of DL/AA. Doesn't EB assign a position at T-36? So, if I'm flying on a WGA fare, I can understand that I'll be behind the A-listers, and likely behind the full-fare folks with EB. However, that still usually puts me in the high As or low Bs...I would guess about half the folks are checking in at T-24. Seems like a reasonable deal to me, for less than half the bag fee that I'd pay on the legacies.

The problem is that more and more folks are paying for EBCI and each one of them diminishes the potential value of your $10. IMHO Southwest should limit the sale of EBCI to number of "A" boarding passes available. This would encourage folks to buy EBCI sooner and assure them that they board before all the rug-rats and curtain-climbers.

OR - better yet - Southwest could offer the option of assigned seats and eliminate so much hassle.

GLC - do you fly Southwest to/from cruises? I imagine this homebound flights have a lot of EBCI...that seems like a logical target audience for it since at T-24 you're out at sea somewhere...

I fly to and from cruises, next time (31st) MCO - LAX for cruise to Hawaii. But I live in Orlando and have a summer camp in Maine, so we also do the MCO - MHT route a lot with many vacationers who choose EBCI. We go to Las Vegas a couple times a year (WN has non-stops!) and have been getting high boarding numbers coming home; seems to be combination of folks making connections and those like us who opt for EBCI.

Southwest has worked for us under RR 1.0 - time will tell if it continues to do so.

The entire boarding process is a sham. At least a "Shambles". They need advanced seat selection and they need to dump the t24 thing.

But yes, EBCI is a bit of a rip off. I have always considered it a situation in which WN created a problem (line anxiety, t24 anxiety) and then sold the cure for the problem it created. EBCI makes no promises about being in the A group..it is possible to end up in B or theorhetically C. The problem is bigger than thru-pax.

Compounding the problem is that the FA's and WN in general make no effort to protect the integrity of the EBCI program. If you sell a higher revenue product, you must protect that product from devaluation by rule breakers. If they sell EBCI they MUST 1: enforce boarding order and 2: Forbid seat saving. Otherwise you pay 10 dollars and get no benefit from it because A47 lines up with her hubby at A23, and you get to 11C and someone is "saving" those seats for their C group companion and the FA refuses to take a side on the matter.

Their rewards program is sub-par, and offers very little to the FF'er except a few free coach tics sometimes. Pales in comparison to even the worst domestic F class, despite what people say about domestic F class.

+1. The seat-saving, especially the saving of desirable seats, should be forbidden. Since the FA's tend to station themselves near the exit row at boarding time, they should absolutely prevent this.

I don't think WN needs to go to seat assignments. As for premium cabins, if you'd asked me 2 years ago I would have said they are 100% firm on their overall business strategy of a single cabin and will never operate any kind of F/J product. Obviously I was wrong on that...but I don't think the existing WN (as opposed to formerly AirTran) planes need a premium cabin. I liked the old simplicity model...I'm just flying an hour, get me there fast...and I'm afraid they're already making it more complicated than their systems can actually handle.

How are your wrong on that? From Southwest's website:

I don't know how long it will take to remove the first class section and add extra seats. My guess is not much longer then the time it will take to repaint the planes and do whatever else is necessary to convert the plane from Airtran to a Southwest look.

I wouldn't say you're wrong if WN runs a F/J product for the short time it takes to change over the planes.

If I saw someone ahead of me without a proper boarding order, I would make some noise and try to make sure proper boarding order is followed by forcefully bringing it up to the boarding agent. Since SW has open seating, I will take any empty seat, especially in the exit row, despite the fact that someone may be "saving" it. While a FA may not tell a sitting passenger he can not save a seat, she will also not prevent me from taking it. If I get on first, I am entitled to any open seat, and the saving passenger is only entitled to the one he is sitting in. Stand your ground.

It is a shame to have to self-enforce. I will be happy when I no longer have to do so.

The GA scans the BPs. Why not just program the system to beep or make some kind of automatic announcement if a scanned BP is more then 5 or 10 numbers higher then the last one scanned?