This site does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers. Please view our advertising policy page for more information. Skip to content. Advertiser Disclosure. Jennifer Yellin. You Can Pay to Board Sooner Southwest will allow to you purchase two different opportunities to get a better boarding seat. Early Bird Check-In Your boarding position is tied to when you check in for your flight.
Upgraded Boarding Position There is a second option. Southwest Family Boarding after Group A Since only 60 or so passengers will be boarding the plane before you, there are plenty of seats together for families to occupy.
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Sign-up Successful! This is a smart backup to have in a pinch for those times you forgot to check in at 24 hours and risked it without Early Bird. See my guide to Southwest credit cards for all the details. Flying with a child under age two on your lap?
Southwest is the only airline that requires you to show a birth certificate for your lap child. This rule applies no matter what the age of your lap child and even for domestic flights. If you have flown another airline with a lap baby, chances are pretty good you would not have been asked for proof of age unless the child looked to be nearing the age of 2. Not so with Southwest. Even if you obviously have a newborn who would never be mistaken for a toddler nearing the two year cutoff, pack that birth certificate!
Related : Tips for Flying with a Lap Todder. Call the airline in advance if you find yourself in this situation, because enforcement differs from airport to airport and agent to agent.
In order to board your Southwest flight with a lap child, you need to obtain what is called a boarding verification document. This document is similar to a boarding pass and confirms that the child has been age verified by showing a birth certificate. You can only get this boarding verification document at the ticket counter or the Skycap curbside counters at the airports pre-security. You cannot print or download it in advance like you can with other Southwest boarding passes.
Air travel is hectic, and I never rely on being able to have time to buy food at the airport — especially not in with many airport restaurants closed or overrun with demand. Packing meals and snacks is simply a must when you have kids. Southwest has only pre-packaged snacks. The snack options in Southwest have changed a bit in recent years, particularly since the hiatus in flying that many travelers took in and early The Nabisco snacks that used to be served on longer flights like shortbread cookies, Oreos, and Ritz cheese crackers also appear to be gone now.
In , my family has mostly been served a Southwest branded snack mix with pretzels, bagel chips, and cheese crackers and sometimes also Brownie Brittle on most flights. If you are bound for Hawaii on Southwest Airlines , there are additional food options on these flights. See my review of a Southwest flight to Hawaii for all the details and photos. Keeping kids entertained on planes is essential for a less stress flight for parents.
While we try in my family to pack a few tech-free entertainment options for our kids , electronic devices area also a crucial part of our strategy for passing the time. In , Southwest expanded its entertainment offerings. Messaging apps iMessage and WhatsApp are now free, but what will make most families happiest are the free in-app movies. In order to access the movies on smartphones and tablets, however, you must have the Southwest app on your device.
There is usually a wide-variety of recently released kid-friendly movies available mixed in among a few classics, so chances are good you will find something new to keep your kids engaged. Back to lap children for a second. Because Southwest has open seating, if there are open seats to be had anywhere on the plane, you can usually snag them for your lap child without paying for a ticket. The rest of the A group follows with A This boarding group also includes active-duty military.
Everyone else now gets to board, with the B group going next. Both groups board in numerical order starting with position 1 and moving to position There are a few ways to get an early Southwest boarding group position, but many of them come at an additional cost. You can check in online at Southwest. Otherwise, you can check in at the airport or with an agent at the airport. Business Select fares come with many perks including Fly By priority lane access, a complimentary premium drink, and yes, guaranteed receipt of an A1-A15 boarding position.
These positions are not assigned to regular ticket customers once the hour check-in window begins, so if the flight is low on elite flyers or Business Select passengers, there may be some available for purchase.
Those boardings can be purchased all at once, or for different flights, so you could opt to upgrade your posse once, or give yourself the VIP treatment a few times throughout the year. Customers with Rapid Rewards A-List Preferred or A-List Member status get their boarding position automatically reserved 36 hours before departure and before normal check-in begins, putting you ahead of everyone else who has to wait for that hour window.
While holding Southwest status is not a guarantee of an A position e. EarlyBird Check-In is an add-on option to your ticket that automatically checks you in 36 hours prior to the flight's scheduled departure time.
That puts you in the running for the best boarding position next to the folks with Southwest status or Business Select fares and ahead of everyone else who has to wait for the hour window.
As far as how the order of EarlyBird Check-In is determined amongst everyone who pays for it: Boarding positions are assigned based on the time that EarlyBird Check-In was purchased relative to passengers within the same fare class so Anytime passengers with EarlyBird will be checked in ahead of Wanna Get Away passengers with EarlyBird.
EarlyBird does not guarantee a boarding position again, if everyone purchases EarlyBird, then some people will still have to be in the B and C groups , but it does increase your odds of getting in a better boarding position. A good way to tell whether that A boarding position is still available is by checking the seats still available for your flight. If there are Business Select fares left, then it's likely there are A spots leftover too. Next time, consider purchasing EarlyBird Check-In or booking a higher fare class to begin with.
It was worth the money not to worry about getting a likely spot in the A boarding when with the family. It was just a few weeks ago that I praised their amazing Social Media Team SouthwestWhit and customer service in general. Thanks to Hurricane Irene, we were left worried that we would not make it to our flight after the storm. We were right, the roads were closed although the flight did go. A quick Tweet to them after a great call pointed their Twitter people in my direction.
Before I could blink, Whitney had made me forget about my dislike for the Southwest cattle call boarding. Not only did she refund my Early Bird Check In money, but she changed my voucher to a full refund. I even wrote a post about how well they used social media along with another company.
Now I am left more confused. With so much negative publicity, was my encounter with Southwest Airlines a fluke? When I spoke to the supervisor in reservations, I was told that there were only 2 tickets in the A group available, which removed the option to upgrade my entire family to business class.
When I spoke to the supervisor in customer relations two people later, five people down the line total , I was told that the only ticket in A1-A15 taken already was A1. It seems that perhaps the social media team has as much information and leeway as the last person to whom I spoke and that explains your good experience. Sadly, it took me two hours to get to someone who knew the truth about the flight, and it took me several hours to hear back from anyone in social media.
It depends. Since EarlyBird Check-In is associated with a reservation, any changes must be made within the same reservation record same confirmation number in which the Customer purchased EarlyBird Check-In. While I absolutely feel for you and would be equally outraged, the fact is that the information is plainly on their site stating your EarlyBird would not transfer.
If the agent said it would, it was up to you to confirm that on the updated email. I know I have failed to read these confirmation emails, and being that you were busy you may not have given it the attention it needed. Southwest sends out EarlyBird confirmation emails. There are times I did not get them — and I called to check.
Emails do get misdirected. But to put the blame squarely on Southwest and take no responsibility for your own lack of follow up is not right. Having made your reservation for that new flight put you near the bottom of the EarlyBird queue and if there were that many passengers ahead of you to put you into the B group then so be it.
That is why they accepted that it was their fault. And yes, I understand that it does not guarantee a spot in the A group, but I was also able to confirm with the agent before moving my flight how many people had already a. I am very thorough when it comes to travel, especially when it impacts my children. I was a loyal customer who raved to friends and relatives about my love for SW Airlines. I am losing my love blush a little, but remain faithful because I still want to love them.
A great benefit of SW ,for me, is that you can cancel a flight that you booked. The difference goes into a fund which you can use to pay for part or all of your next SW flight.
Two of us commute wkly. The money in your fund can be accessed when you are paying for your next flight. I was upset today to learn that after 1 yr.
I called and told an agent on the phone, who looked it up for me and let me know that the funds were gone. She told me it is in writing on website in plain English. I was a few days past the deadline — lost the funds in the account that I was counting on using. So often, I have sung the praises re: how well I am treated with SW. One could enter the confirmation numbers and check on their funds in order to see the amounts and when they expire, and then purchase new tickets in a timely manner.
As it is now— you can call in and an ask an agent who will give you the info. Since everything else can be done on the computer, why not this? Amy, I understand that when you are giving all your loyalty to a company, you sort of have an expectation that someone will, in your case, do all that they can do to keep you as a happy customer. In my case, assuming that the agent had no ability to bring back the funds, she could have been nicer when letting me know the bad news.
Southwest is in the news a lot for treating customers rudely, arbitrarily and sometimes discriminatorily. It is their business practice to allow their employees a big leeway to make rules up as they go along. They are proud of that culture, and it may indeed make for a happy staff. It also makes for happy customers—UNTIL you are the one wronged by that culture either because of discrimination or their many, many errors made. I kinda wish people would learn from others.
But social media is changing that, and finally Southwest is getting the bad press they deserve. Deb, thanks for your comment. Absolutely frightening. This is my second time flying Southwest. The ticket price screw up ie billing me a second time was enough to put me off ever flying them again. The first time I flew Southwest Dec I saw a pilot flying as a passenger pull a not so nice move.
An elderly lady very much in need of aid was trying to put a bag in na overhead and the pilot in the aisle seat beside her made no effort to get up and help. Another passenger hopped up and did help. The flight attendants on the return flight were beyond unprofessional.
They cackled like hens on the PA system but were notnhing short of nasty as they did the drink service. I really questioned ever flying them again. I love you for so many reasons, and this is one of them. You are not afraid to speak your mind, but you speak it in such a classy way.
I hope you guys have a fantastic Disney trip and that your flight turns out to be pleasant! Even better than the European luxury carriers. That said, their open seating policies do pose a problem for families, especially when family members want to sit with each other.
I usually fly them alone, but might think twice if I had little kids. Have a blast! Thank you, Amy! Very non-family friendly airline, but if they keep adding WiFi to those flights headed in the direction of blog conferences…. Be careful switching to AirTran. I was following your tweets today so thanks for giving us the full story!
I used to travel on business quite a lot, but it was rare I ever travelled on Southwest Airlines my airline of choice was always American Airlines.
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