So, for the process of booking the tickets - super! I give 2 thumbs up for this. I had limited availability of flights for the points I wanted to spend, but I was okay with that. I did almost everything online, just once I had to call customer service to cancel a flight that wasn't cancelling online. Customer service was very friendly and helpful and made the cancellations and let me do the rest online. (And the reason I wasn't able to cancel was because I made a round-trip booking first, and only wanted to cancel the return portion to create a different itinerary) I loved that I was able to make roundtrip reservations, then cancel half of it at a later time, have my miles post back to my account immedietely, and be able to select 2 more 1 way fares for my total route with no change fees. The program allows for a lot of flexibility for U.S. travel.
We ended up going to Minneapolis for 4 days, then on to Buffalo for 1 day and then back home with 2 very full travel days. Originally we were just headed to Minneapolis, but decided since we were halfway across the country, we might as well take advantage of that and get in an extra wishlist trip for half the cost. We are very pleased that we chose our Niagara Falls destination. It is not a destination we would have wanted to be at for more than 1 day...it was the perfect place for us at the time. I think total we used about 32000 miles for the 2 destinations and flight back. (Of course we used our companion pass too, so the per person miles redemption was really half that)
On to a review of Southwest Airlines...booking tickets with points or cash is excellent, and can for the most part be done online with complete ease. The only hiccup a person might find with booking is that you can't plan too far ahead since they only have fare availability 90-180 days in advance.
Here is the advantage in booking award flights with Southwest: your points relate to how much the cash price is, so if there is a fare sale, then the points needed to redeem is decreased. This is fabulous for people trying to maximize the amount of travel they can take with their points such as myself. On a traditional airline, you pay 25,000 miles whether the fare is 200 dollars for 500 dollars. This means that domestic travel isn't usually a very good value for my miles...I'd rather save them a tiny bit longer to accrue enough for a more exotic destination. But with Southwest, I can fly coast to coast for as little as 17,000 miles. In general, I hope to not use more than 10,000 miles per flight - and from Seattle, the prices are generally pretty good and I can do this with good planning. Checking the low fare calendar is a very useful tool, and keeping your vacation days flexible is also very useful as many of the lowest fares are on a Thursday.
Now, for getting onto the plane and getting that seat you want, or as for our family-simply getting a seat together. First thing to note is that if you have a family with children 4 or younger, they have a family boarding time after the A group has been boarded. If you don't have an A boarding ticket - use it! You'll find a seat together this way. If you have younger children that are older than 4 and want to sit together - try to get in the A or B boarding group and don't be choosy about your seats. We actually prefer to sit in the back of the plane except for when we need to make quick connections - which we had with all 3 of our flights - and we were able to sit fairly close to the front of the plane with either our A boarding pass or using the family boarding. Soon we won't be able to use family boarding since our youngest will be 5 in January...after that we'll just be thankful that Southwest employees and patrons are friendly and kind.
I advise online check-in exactly 24 hours before your flight to get an A boarding ticket (and even that does not guarantee you one - as we did this and still got a B boarding ticket) You can pay the 10 dollar early bird check in which automatically check's you in after first class and before general ticket holders. At 10 dollars a person per ticket - this could get expensive. For our trip it would have cost 120 buck-a-roos that I would rather spend on airport food keeping my kids tummies from the grumblies (or really ANYTHING else) So all in all...I just say, don't stress the boarding ticket. If you get C and have no 4 year olds or younger, just get in line at your time and find a seat. Most likely some kind soul will move from their window to take a middle seat so you and junior can sit together, older kids won't care, and maybe - just maybe, you are hoping there are only middle seats so it forces all of you to take a breather from one another. C'est la vie.
We loved this open boarding system. It seemed quick, and easy and less people finding the wrong seat and having to move, and no dupe tickets to get sorted out.
We also really enjoyed the flight crew. The service was quick and friendly. They took extra care of the families with little ones, making sure the kids had kid friendly snacks and they had lids and straws for the beverages the kids requested. They also didn't seem overly concerned or rude about tray tables and electronics before take-off when we were just waiting on the tarmac, which was nice.
And about waiting on the tarmac...there seemed to be a lot of it. Either we were waiting on something (what I don't know, when the pilot speaks it's like listening at a drive-thru box), or someone, or a plane was in the way, whatever. We had a lot of delays. Southwests texts would have been helpful if they actually had arrived before the delay. BUT...even though we had delays on almost every leg...(all 7 of them) we were only late once - which means 3 cheers for Southwest pilots and ground crew!
Another thing different about Southwest seems to be how many stops you make. At least with our low cost flights we chose. I've noted they have some non-stop flights, but all our flights had at least 1 stop, and on our way to Minneapolis, we had 2 (Salt Lake and Denver). I was dreading it a little bit because I felt that it was going to be a hassle...but I discovered that it wasn't a hassle and I actually enjoyed the shorter flights over one long stretch. For me it made the travel time go faster, and I never once looked at my watch to find out how much longer we had. It also kept my kids more entertained. I find the time before take-off and our 30 minutes of descent are the easiest entertainment times since the kids are entertained merely by the excitement of the plane...which means I had to do less to keep them quiet and happy for our 3 short flights to Minneapolis than our 2 flights back to Seattle from Buffalo.
I think the only thing I didn't like about Southwest was the length of line to check a bag. It was frustrating for me to have my boarding pass in hand and have to wait in a rather long, rather slow line to check a single bag. We ended up deciding to cram it in the overhead bin instead of standing in line. There is a line to print just a boarding pass if you are not checking bags...it would also be nice to have a line of just checking a bag. It would simplify the line even more. A lot of time is wasted by people standing at the kiosk to print their boarding pass before they check their luggage. It would be nice to be able to use that time to check my bag.
Overall, I give Southwest 2 thumbs up! Easy booking, great reward options, effective boarding and a friendly crew. Thanks Southwest!
