cxn

I am now closing out my travels for the year. I will do 180,000+ miles. This of course is both domestic and international flights. I have booked more flights away from WN this year then ever before. Even some of the shorthaul flights which I would always give to WN are no being moved to other airlines. I just checked and see I have 8 more segments I would need to fly by the end of year to just keep A-List on WN. I will not meet that number and once that goes away, I will have very little interest in flying WN outside of great deals or when I fly with the family on shorthaul flights.

Here are some reason why:

1 - No PRE on WN. Since I travel enough, having PRE really makes life easier when traveling.
2 - No more AMEX RR transfer.
3 - RR 2.0.
4 - Blackouts on RR 1.0
5 - Drink Coupons not good for Monster Drinks
6 - For BS pricing, I can fly First Class on DL.

What doesnt matter to me:

1 - Change fees - Of all the flights I have booked this past year, I only made two changes. Both were international flights. All my domestic flights I took without making a change.
2 - No Baggage Fee - With status, I am able to get free baggage when needed on the airlines.
3 - A-List Boarding - If I book last minute on WN, I wont get A-List without either paying for BS or going to the gate agent and asking to board with the A-Group. Plus, you have non-rev employees that continue to board first, suck up two seats and lean into each other to block the middle seat.

I will continue to fly WN when it is cheaper and makes since but in the end, when I have a choice, WN will (and has not been) my first choice.

I know I am one customer but I am voting with my feet.

sanFF

Although I am only a domestic short haul traveler for the most part, I used to be
100% on Southwest. With the benefits of 1.0, never having to pay for drinks
fares that were always the lowest I never needed to fly any one else. Now
I see myself saving money on other carriers for about 50% of my flying. It is what it is. Apparently the bean counters are happy with it.

lougord99

As much as I dislike many of the changes - the no bag fees and the no change fees usually make Southwest cheapest for me. I almost always check 2 bags which comes to $50 per segment and I value no change fees at around $20 per segment ( based upon the number of times I need to change or more often cancel versus the number of segments ).

jamesteroh

I also agree with everything the OP said.

For change fees, I know that benefit is very valuable for some flyers, but for me they don't really matter. I would rather have free SDC or Standby privledges than no change fees.

If you fly enough on a legacy, you will get two free bags anyway, and in fact the limit is usually 70-lbs instead of 50 and your bags get priority treatment and are to come out first on the belt and if you get an upgrade you get 3 bags or if you are on a paid first class ticket you get three bags (for me not that big of a benefit anyway since I rarely check bags but it is nice having priority treatment when I do pack a bag and if I want to pack heavy I can always get everything into one bag with the 70 lb limit).

For a-list boarding you usually get a decent seat on a legacy even booking at the last minute anyway since they will hold back their preferred seats for their customers with status, or if the customer gets stuck with a lousy seat, they will get moved first to a better seat when those seats open up due to other PAX being upgraded or confirming to other flights.

And as another poster mentioned precheck is a HUGE timesaver if it's available at the airports you frequent.

I miss having a beverage service on short hauls if I don't get upgraded or am in a one cabin aircraft. WN always did a beverage service on DTW/MDW and even the short BNA/BHM flight. Delta doesn't do a beverage service DTW to Chicago unless you are in first class on a DTW/ORD flight and American on DTW/ORD rarely does one. I also miss some of the FA's, I don't recall ever having a rude or unfriendly FA on a Southwest flight on all the flights I took on them.

Companion pass is a benefit that I know is very valuable to some flyers, but for me it was worthless.

derv88

Operationally WN is the most efficient airline. They make the majors look like clunky american auto manufacturers in the 1980's. This point alone will keep me a loyal WN customer.

formeraa

It depends on the flights/routes you fly. I've had some pretty poor IRROPS experiences on WN (i.e. your 7pm flight is cancelled; come back tomorrow at 2pm for the next flight). OTOH, I've had some of my best IRROPS...flight delayed 2.5 hours due to mechanical...gave $100 voucher.

Also, have you looked at flight times on certain routes (i.e. TUS-SEA)...not very good connections in many cases. At least, the majors have a hub and spoke system which maximizes connections at a major airport.

tusphotog

I've really cut back on my WN flying in 2012, not because they're more expensive (they are in some cases), or RR 2.0 (I earn a ton of points per year), but because they've totally decimated their schedule in Tucson. We lost another two flights to ABQ with their new schedule. This means there are no more one stop flights to Dallas. AA can get me there in 90 minutes. WN now gets me there in 6, 7, or 8 hours. Though I'm hopeful it will change in 2014.

So I find myself driving to Phoenix, which is no big deal, but when I do, I fly DL or AS since both of those terminals are much easier to travel through than the WN mess.

This is a big one. I no longer fly WN out of SEA, PDX, SLC or other PreCheck airports when practical.

It really does. Anything out of PHX, LAS, OAK (or their east coast equivalents) are fine. When you get to the outlying cities like TUS, it's difficult. IRROPS on intra-CA routes are really a non-issue.

IflyfromPHX

I am in the opposite situation. The past two yars I have split travel 50/50 on WN and DL. I am A+ w/ CP, and DL PM - stopping just short of DM.

I really like the point values earned on WN in RR 2.0. Especially when they run the double points Promo. Last week I flew 2 R/Ts PHX-SJC and PHX-MDW. I earned over 40k in points in one week...and one of the four legs was WGA fare.

Add the fact that I can actually (easily) redeem WN points for low level award tickets, and bring a companion for free. While on DL it takes a ton of flying and even more work to find 2 low first/BE award tickets.

Next year, I will only requal to PM on delta due to rolling over 45k MQMs and will stop there...unless I tack on a MR or two.

Lastly, out of PHX I can do most all of my flights NS when I have to connect on DL. I do enjoy my nice upgrade %, but not worth the extra connection.

ElmhurstNick

I'm barely going to make A-List Preferred this year. I had 46k TQP by July 1, and only 16k more since then. Need to do another 8K in the next couple of weeks (two RTs in Business Select) - have 4k booked and trying to figure out my work trip for the 2nd week of December to finish the year.

Meanwhile, I've moved a bunch of travel to Delta/Alaska and a little to Virgin America. The biggest reason is the new Evolve seat. It's ok if the flight is only 1/2 full, but on a full plane it is torturous to my hips and knees.

The other reason is that the AT/BS fares have skyrocketed. In most situations in the past, I could buy the AT fare for work and not really think twice about it due to the flexibilty vs. the legacies. Now for anything longer than 600 miles, that's really not an option any more.

I'll still be flying WN a lot, as I have 170k RR2 points for leisure travel and I still have a fair amount of short-haul I have to do for work. But I'm not planning on retaining A+ another year, and will just drop down to A-. Meanwhile, DL/AS/VX will get more and more of my longer-distance work business.

Air DVS

I recently flew on US▪Airways from DCA to PDX via PHX. I had to check my bag as it was going to be too big to fit into the overhead. I have no status on USAirways. Here's the list of fee's I had to choose from:
1. $25 to check a bag
2. $48 for a window seat at the front of coach
3. $20 to pre board early
4. $50 for triple FF miles
5. $20 I forgot to print my bag fee receipt. This is the after flight reprint fee.

That's $163 in fee's for one person on a one way flight. I chose only the checked bag fee. I also discovered that 50% of the flight was boarded before my last row middle seat was called, and 75% of the overhead was already full.

Tha's why my first choice is WN.

tusphotog

Why didn't you fly Alaska nonstop DCA-PDX or DCA-SEA-PDX?

TSparky

I used to be 100% on WN but not anymore. Price is important to my employer and clients and they are no longer always the cheapest. I still made A+ this year but I'm not sure about next year. I flew a bunch of UA/AS because they were 3-4 hours direct instead of 7-8 hours with connections on WN. Intra-Calif, no question WN hands down. Anywhere else, it's about schedule+price. Because I'm silver on UA I've been getting the E+ every time, even on the larger Barbie jets. E+ beats Devolve even on a RJ. I'm on a little ERJ-200 next week for the first time, so that my change my feelings.

PA42

The unwanted child of Canadian/Brazilian parents?

sorka

I do like Southwest flexibility on change fees.
I do like Southwest for short flight.

What I don't like is for the long routes: there are no red-eye flights. I have the companion pass, and live in San Francisco. But I can't afford wasting a whole day traveling to the east coast for vacationing. I like long weekend and like how I can take a red-eye on Delta and arrive in FL for example on a Friday morning and enjoy my long weekend.

So Southwest is great if you flight short flights, if you can book in advance and enjoy low WGA, or if your company is paying Anytime fare or BS so you can rack up points.

Dunbar

I don't have any status with US Air either and their Spirit Airlines-esque fee model is why I despise flying them for my last minute work bookings. You're pretty much guaranteed to get stuck in a middle seat and have to buy your way out. The "preferred" seating is priced per segment which means you can spend well over $100 on a R/T booking just to avoid a middle seat. Their elites get somewhat better access to window/aisle seats but even they aren't immune from the fee. I can only guess they do this to undercut their competitors on sites like Kayak and Orbitz and make up the difference in fees.