Companion Pass ever unavailable?
 

If my wife gets books a ticket, then qualifies for a companion pass, from what I understand she can add me to her reservation as a companion. Is that correct? Do flights ever fill up so that adding a companion to a particular flight is unavailable? Thanks!

As long as there are seats on the flights, whether they are business, anytime, or wanna get away fares, she can add companion.

Flights can fill up. Go check southwest.com for any/all routes/dates you're interested in

If one of you has the points so that you can be booked on points, you can do that to be sure you have a seat, then get the points back once you're changed to a CP booking. If the flight is sold out when she gets CP, you can phone to get the reservation changed. Otherwise, let her book you as her companion, then cancel the points booking.

If she is on the plane regardless of how she got the ticket you are eligible to fly as long as there is a seat available to book....just be sure to add the companion right away.

Before booking the ticket, do your same flight with 3 or 4 passengers...you can do up to 8 to see if there are other seats open when booking.

Only restriction is there - there must be at least one seat available for sale.

On one trip last year, I realized I had not booked the companion yet (that's me). (lots of changes, so I often waited, but booked the paid flight early for price).

Day before the trip I realized I did not have a seat. Went to book it and flight was sold out.

For the next 10-12 hours I was checking multiple times an hour waiting for a seat to open up. It finally did and I grabbed it. Based on some threads I found here, others in the same boat have always been able to find a last minute seat.

Obviously if the flight is completely sold-out you won't be able to add your companion to it. But one time WN refused to allow me to add a companion when BS and AT fares were still available. "There are no seats for companions left," a Southwest phone agent explained to me.

"You're saying there's now a special quota on companions? Where's that documented?" I asked.

"It's not documented externally. But there's a special fare category needed for companions, and that category's all sold out on your flight. The military rate is in the same category. We can't sell more military fares on that flight, either."

In retrospect I'm not sure if I stumbled across some arcane WN policy or just a very... misinformed... agent. I figured I'd HUCA the next day, though by then I'd chosen to change my own flight, anyway, and booking a companion seat on it was no problem.

Probably a stupid question but did you first try to add your companion on through WN's website or phone app and it wouldn't let you? Or did you just call in to talk to an agent?

There are flights which sell out completely, although this is far less frequent since Southwest stopped overbooking flights.

Just for peace of mind, I always book a companion reservation at the same time I make my paid reservation.

The only time this becomes a burden is if you need to change the flight. Then, the companion reservation must be cancelled first (with the tax refunded) before the paid fare

can be changed. Finally, the companion can be re-booked, yielding a new passenger record number for the companion.

Is this backwards? Wouldn't there be more flights showing sold out now since Southwest shows "sold out" once the 143 seat is sold, instead of continuing to show availability and oversell the flight? Or is there another dynamic I'm missing? Thanks

You're right.

It's backwards.

Except that last minute cancellations now open up actual seats rather than simply reduce the number of overbookings.

I tried first through the website. When that didn't work I called an agent, and that's where I got the explanation about how there's supposedly a nonpublic limit on the number of seats available for special fares including companions.

It is very possible the "not available fare" thing above was from years ago or something. Surely have not seen anyone posting anything about that in the past few years here.

I have seen a number of postings from people with a sold out flight that eventually found an open slot and booked it easily.