bkwee

I agree. I think this will provide competing carriers an opportunity to raise their fares where they compete with WN, though I doubt UA will give me free booze. I benched marked a few fares out of TUS today so I can watch what happens over the next few days.

pitflyer

How is it not more complicated? If you checked in 24 hours in advance before you were nearly guaranteed an A seat, even if you had a flight where connections may have snagged a lot of the seats. And as many of us did, as long as you got ANY A you were usually good to go for a non middle seat. This included peak flights. Now booking peak flights on a 'wanna get away' fare means much, much more risk that you have very little or no chance of getting an A because of Business Select and A-Listers.

As someone who's been elite on UA, AA, DL and US the changes do bring Southwest in line with those programs by adding a defacto elite level and the equivalent of 'free upgrades for full fare' (on many airlines) but by definition that is more complicated than not having those 'features' (or flaws depending on your opinion).

I will be an A-Lister AND book Business Select fares but I still don't like the changes because when my wife travels with me it seems likely I will end up with an A and she will end up with B or C. I know Southwest does turn away people with the wrong boarding group (that's a good thing) but I wonder what they will do with couples/etc who are now mixed group (the new frontier, first we break the race barrier, now the boarding group barrier) LOL

MrMan

Just show your RR card. All members can use at most airports. WN controls most checkpoints as they are the largest carrier in most concources

Beckles

The fact that they will award 1.25 bonus credits for BS flights less than 750 miles is not good news ... this means they have implemented the ability to award only a quarter credit, and I'd be willing to bet some partners will take advantage of this very very soon.

curbcrusher

Please reread my post. My "not more complicated" refers to RR, not seating.

nsx

Easy. I won't need to rearrange my day for OLCI any more.

Diamondback

I totally agree here. I'm missing the 'real' benefits of the BS program for FF's. I'm not sure I could justify on my T&E either that I chose the BS fare so that I could get a free drink.

TheRoadie

Will they have bar code readers on-board to go along with serialized drink chits? Or will there be an explosion of photoshopped coupons if they're not serialized?

If the drink coupon is "married" to the flight number and date, then they're worthless if you can't save them up to use on a suitable flight. Early morning commuting flights before customer visits aren't the time to be cashing in for a bloody mary.

Beckles

Since when?

Diamondback

Here's the answer on getting priority boarding for last minute flights. Rule 7 below. So, if you standby or book last minute.....welcome to 23:59:591/2

Reserved boarding privileges will not be provided in instances where the Member’s reservation meets any of the following criteria: reservations booked less than 36 hours prior to scheduled departure; changes made to an existing reservation within 36 hours of a scheduled flight; standby travel on a different flight than what was originally confirmed; flights taken after a Member’s status expires from our A-List. Irregular operations may also affect a Member’s benefits on Rapid Rewards’ A-List boarding priority.

SAT Lawyer

That, by itself, would seem to gut a key benefit -- maybe the key benefit -- of Business Select: having a flexible fare that supposedly brings with it the promise of a guaranteed spot at the top of the A group.

The need for A-group protection is much less acute when it comes to taking a flight as originally booked that has been scheduled for a number of days, weeks, or months as prompt online check-in, if nothing else (i.e. a Business Select fare or A-List status), should still give the traveler a decent shot at an A. Where priority boarding protection is truly needed is when a high revenue customer needs to or wants to switch to a different flight on the day of departure. Apparently, Business Select is not the solution to this problem.

nsx

One extra credit is worth $15 to $20. For an 800-mile flight, Business Select might be a very attractive alternative to the regular full fare.

High on Luv

Wow – five pages in less than three hours has to be some kind of a record!

I noticed a few questions that keep coming up, so I wanted to provide a little clarification.

A-List status is determined on a rolling 12-month basis and by flight credits only. You can log into your account tomorrow and see how close you are to being added to our A-List. Also, we certainly value all our of Partners and all of those credits earned through our Partners… that’s why those credits still count towards Awards and count toward your Companion Pass!

If you’re on the A-List and book or change your reservation less than 36 hours before your flight, we cannot guarantee that we can reserve you the best available boarding pass – because of time zone changes and connecting passengers who print their boarding passes early. Inside of 24 hours, open checkin has begun and there is no way for us to set aside boarding passes for A-List Members. However, under normal operations, you can still upgrade to Business Select at the gate if that fare is still available.

Customers traveling on Business Select fares will get the first boarding passes, and Members of A-List will receive the best available boarding passes after that. While we can’t get into the nitty-gritty, A-List order is sorted by, number of revenue flights taken within the past 12 months among other things.

Hope this helps clear some things up!

curbcrusher

What Diamondback quoted referred to A-List, not BS.

curbcrusher

This goes back to FCfree's question upthread about bonus credits with Business Select. Those are flight credits, so do they shorten the number of actual flights required to earn A-List? I thought no, but from your reference to flight credits, it seems so.