diburning

To preface, I am a borderline passenger of size. On other airlines, I typically will fit fine on an Airbus aircraft, and on a 737, I can angle my body in a window seat, with my shoulder up against the window, to fit into the seat. albeit uncomfortably. Because of this, I usually book and fly in First Class on airlines that offer it, whenever possible, when the fare is not outrageous.

Having read about Southwest's Passenger of Size policy, I found a decent fare, and booked an extra seat followng the instructions to put XS as the middle name for the second seat. My itinerary is BOS-MDW-ATL.

So, I followed the directions and checked in at the airport counter. At the counter, the agent was flustered, and went to go speak to his supervisor who was watching the self-service kiosks. The agent said that "we have no ability to sell extra seats" and then cancelled my second seat and gave me a receipt that said it was cancelled for a credit. I asked to speak to the supervisor, and the agent declined saying that she was "busy."

I went to the gate, and told the gate agent that the check-in agent cancelled my second seat, and that I may need a second seat. The gate agent said "don't worry, there's 20 open seats on this flight" instead of looking at the PNR. I called Southwest to get a refund for the second seat. The phone agent told me that the second seat shows as voluntarily cancelled, so receiving a credit is correct. I pleaded my case to the agent, and told her that the check-in agent cancelled my second seat, not me. The phone agent then said that she would request a refund, but that it's not guaranteed that they'd honor it.

Why does no one at Southwest know their own policies? Thankfully, I did end up with the middle seat empty on the first leg, but I'm not looking forward to my next flight where it may or may not be sold out. And if I don't actually receive a refund for that second ticket (No only do I not want a credit, as the extra seat would have been fully refundable if the agents followed their own policy, but I also don't think the credit is usable because the name would be mismatched with the middle name being XS), I'll probably dispute it with Amex and file a DOT complaint.

And to the person browsing FlyerTalk who boarded in front of me who is sitting in 4C, hello!

NoStressHere

Since there is a rant... why cann't I buy an extra seat as well? why to "some"folks get to do this, and others don't?

LegalTender

A "flustered" agent consulted a supervisor but wouldn't let you address the same person?

That's next-level turmoil.

.

diburning

Well apparently since none of the employees at the airport know about the policy, it looks like no one gets to buy an extra seat unless they're over 500 pounds. I'm willing to bet that they have the policy for people who are much larger than me, but for people closer to normal size like me, they'd rather sell the seat.

My second flight was totally full, but thankfully I was able to get a window seat near the front, and a couple teenagers decided that they wanted to sit near the front too, so there was no problem with the space.

hotelboy

Here is what I do not understand. Why does Southwest care if I pay for two seats? What is it to SWA that I bought the seat vs selling it to another person. We both pay the fare but having the extra seat…southwest saves in fuel…no passenger, no checked bag, no cabin bag.

jmw

The usual way to do COS is to book just one seat like a regular customer and request the COS seat at the airport without the extra booking with XS. They've always been able to handle that without exception. I don't know anyone who is COS who does it by prebooking the XS. Seems like an extra hassle trying to chase funds with the minimal risk that your flight will be completely full on an airline that doesn't overbook.

m907

It is a common occurrence that Southwest employees don't actually know the company policies.

synergistic

So you think the agent that decided to cancel the already booked extra seat would have just booked him a second seat? I think it sounds as though the agent seemed the poster not sizable enough, and I don't think a second seat would have been forthcoming. I don't know anything about how that determination is supposed to be made, but it's definitely not ok that OP wasn't given an opportunity to question it with a supervisor.

Also, that may be *your* usual method, but it is not *the* usual method. They changed the FAQ section a bit recently, but it (https://support.southwest.com/helpce...ra-seat-policy) still recommends you book the extra seat (unless you 'prefer' not to) and then gives detailed instructions (https://support.southwest.com/helpce...stomer-of-size) on how to do so. I've had to do this for several flights following a surgery, and aside from not being able to get a mobile boarding pass, it was easy and went smoothly every time. I don't mind 'chasing' the refund (it's just sending an email) to give them a heads up on pax count in gratitude for the general kindness of the policy. They might not overbook, but they're frequently flying full, and I don't want to deliberately make the logistics harder on them.

FWIW, I don't completely understand why Southwest doesn't offer the ability to purchase extra seats to everyone, perhaps with the mandatory purchase of early bird. Perhaps they imagine too many people would be righteously upset to 'lose' their extra seat when boarding late after a tight connection? They don't seem to be concerned about similar issues for BS and status pax, but offhand I can't come up with any other good reasons they wouldn't offer the option.
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LegalTender

Forty "extra seat" purchases would unbalance reservation and management systems, plus complicate landing weight and fuel loads. Purchasers choosing later to bring a companion would be denied? Anticipate on-board enforcement disputes in a boarding process already dispute-prone.

diburning

The refund hit my account today, so I've been made whole.

I probably will fly WN again, but I probably won't book the extra seat again since the agents at my home airport were the ones that didn't know the policy..

NoStressHere

Can not agree.

Their systems are tied to BOOKED seats. Should not matter if a 50# person sits there, 300# or even zero#. the seat is SOLD and PAID for. Over time they can easily adjust weight and fuel issue, or just keep loading MORE fuel. And guess what, with less weight, they will less fuel.

Sell an extra seat. The person is handed a RESERVE SEAT thing at the counter and case closed. Would be a great way to INCREASE revenue with very little extra expense.

LegalTender

Good luck with your "RESERVE SEAT" thing. At MCO there might be 25 pre-boarders. No such thing as "closed case" on a Southwest seat.

You want a reserved seat, fly a reserved-seat airline.

synergistic

I really don't see why the reservation, management, w&b, fuel, and unrealistic requests to change pax names last minute would be significantly more difficult for Southwest to deal with than it is for American, JetBlue, or Alaska, all of whom specifically offer any/all pax the ability to purchase a second seat. Delta and United also offer this, but less specifically and so I assume, without the same level of protection. Regardless, why would you expect Southwest to see so many more extra seat pax, or struggle so much more with them?

The boarding issues are the only part I can see being substantially different for Southwest vs the other airlines who offer this successfully. Where boarding is concerned, in my (admittedly limited) experience, a 'seat reserved' pass tucked into the tray table latch effectively prevented any arguments or delays. In all honesty, I almost never see the seat saving showdowns I've read about here - the longest delays seem to be from people who *have* found a seat, and then require some ridiculous amount of time to find their way out of the aisle.
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dmbolp

More likely that 1 account with 40 booked seats for self is more likely to cancel last minute than 40 individual accounts/people?

WillCAD

I have two comments:
1) WN refers to us bigger people as Customers of Size, not Passengers of Size. I like it better, because COS is a nice acronym, while POS is also an acronym for another term that has a very negative connotation in the US.

2) My own experience flying WN as a COS for more than a decade is that this is most likely a one-off. I suggest you give it another try; I can't guarantee everything will be perfect, but I have very few problems with the COS policy over the years. The main thing I find is that when I check in at the gate, they seem to have some trouble getting everything situated, so I always allow myself some extra time. I think that may not be an issue any more, however; on my last flight, my "Reserved seat" document printed at the ticket counter when I checked my baggage, and there was no requirement to check in at the gate.

If you encounter a lot of employees who don't know the policy, make a stink with customer relations. I know there is a tendency to just stew about it because "Aw, they don't pay attention, nothing ever gets better, I'm just wasting my time!" But nothing will get better if nobody ever complains. They can't fix it if they don't know it's broken.

Ya do now! I've been flying as a COS on WN for more than a decade and I book that extra seat in advance every single time.

They can handle it, without exception, because it's their official policy - if they have to bump someone to accommodate a COS, they will, and the COS will always get the second seat. I suspect we can thank Kevin Smith for that, since he was, uh, less-than-genius enough to try flying in a single seat once and got deplaned because he was encroaching. He was entirely at fault there, but WN got a black eye in the press and revised their COS policies not long afterward. Which is right around the time I started having real difficulty fitting in a single seat. It worked in my favor; prior to the Smith incident and its resulting change of policy, WN would only refund you the cost of the second seat if the flight was not fully booked. In other words, you only got the second seat free if nobody else was going to use it anyway. Now, you get it free even if they have to bump someone to make it available.

The way I figure it is this - if I book two seats in advance, then I'm not potentially causing some other person to get bumped if with a last-minute request for a second seat on a flight that's fully booked. I'm cheap, er, frugal enough to resent having to lay out the extra money, sometimes months in advance, but it's a price I'm willing to pay for both being guaranteed my extra seat, and for not making my problem affect anyone else.

Not entirely whole; you were inconvenienced by the WN employees who didn't know the policies. But close enough, I guess.

As I said above, I always book the second seat in advance. I've never had any difficulty with the booking or checking in, so I hope that your bad experience was a one-off.

So please book that second seat, and if you do continue to have trouble, complain, complain, complain! Things don't ever get better if you just leave them alone. Besides - it's not our job to work around any given employee's incompetence, it's their job to fix their incompetence and follow corporate policy.