Southwest Rocks!
Having come to terms with the inability to book a specific seat a while back, I’ve been a fan of Southwest for sometime now. As someone who would jump back & forth occasionally from the bay, LA, and Vegas it’s great how quickly you can rack up a free flight. Their reality TV show, Airlines, hasonly made me like them more (although it’s also served as a lesson not to drunk before getting on the plane).
Even with all that, my appreciation for them just jumped a bit. Recently having received a free Rapid Rewards ticket, I hopped online to see if I could use it to fly home to Chicago for the 4th. (People here in California don’t know how to celebrate it properly.) Visiting southwest.com, I noticed you can “log in” now. Thinking that would make the process easier, I registered, logged into my account and discovered I had not one, but two roundtrip tickets available, the second having been earned just shy of a year ago. Just so shy in fact, that it expired on the 30th of June and I would be traveling on the 2nd of July.
Annoyed with my stupidity of having lost a free roundtrip ticket, I decided I should just move forward and book my trip. After all, if I linger, I’ll miss that two week advance noticed needed for free trips. I wanted to do something non-obvious (fly out of LAX, but return to Burbank), so I decided to give Southwest a call. While talking with the agent, she let me know that 1) on Southwest, no, you don’t need 2 week notice. In fact, if the flight had open seats, I could fly tomorrow, and 2) she noticed my soon-to-expire trip and told me not to let it go to waste — that you can get it extended another year for a $50 charge. Not bad, considering it was my open stupidity.
I’m not sure what other airline is like that. Good customer service & customer friendly policies go a very, very long way in building customer loyalty.
Now if I can just convince them to give more than two fucking bags of peanuts…
June 15th, 2005 at 11:46 am
I’ve been flying Alaskan a lot lately (the only direct flight between DCA and LAX) and I have to say the experience has been very good. Though I haven’t dealt with them directly much (have to use corporate travel site) when I do use their site, I’ve found it pretty easy to use. If somewhat bland looking. They have good leg-room in coach, even better than American I think. And the capper is that on day-of-flight, at the airport, you can bump up to first class for a $100. That’s a pretty sweet deal.
Oh, and you get an assigned seat.
June 15th, 2005 at 11:53 am
I’ve only flown Alaska on a small flight to Seattle. Do you get more leg room & bigger seats on first class in Alaska? What’s the perks?
June 15th, 2005 at 11:58 am
I could not agree with you more on the fact that Californian’s DO NOT know how to properly celebrate the 4th of July. Paying to see fireworks??? Give me a brake!! Since I moved here I have never seen any fireworks on the 4th and it saddens me. Kudos to you for going back to Chicago to celebrate the 4th properly!! Be sure to see the fireworks show on the 3rd by Navy Pier.
Also, more peanuts would be nice:)
June 15th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
There is alot more legroom in first class. The real bonus is the width of the seats. In the same space where coach has 6 seats first has 4. Plus there is the free liquor. Food is better. Not great, but a lot better. Served with a salad first, then the main course, then desert (plus they keep asking if you’d like more wine, champagne, Jack Daniels, whatever you are drinking). You get the digiplayer as part of first class too, no extra charge. First on, first off the plane. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth the $100 (maybe less for gong to Chicago, dunno).
As for fireworks we’re curious about what it will be like here. I grew up in California. There is going to be a fireworks show over the National Mall. We are hoping we’ll get a good show from our sun room as it faces partly in that direction. On the other hand, we may actually walk around and witness the bedlam on the ground, happy that we won’t have to brave the traffic afterward. I’ll try to take pics.
June 15th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
Navy Pier is definitely on tap for the 3rd! We’re also hoping to catch a Cubs game before it too.
Never thought of 4th in DC, but man, now I’m jealous. A full report is hereby required on your blog & there’s a good chance I’m visiting you fuckers next year for it. ;-)