Quote:
Originally Posted by daveshookme
I know lockman and others from the travel thread will disagree with me and call me foolish but I think every single flight I've taken in the past 5 years (somewhere around 100) has been with southwest except for 2. One was jetblue, and one was (i think) continental. I can't remember who that second one was.
|
Eh, it’s all relative to what’s important to you.
When I fly, things like preassigned seats, first class (confirmed or upgrades), airport lounges, schedule, frequency, number of destinations, etc are most important to me in an airline. I follow The Points Guy religiously because I milk as many airline miles and hotel/car rental points as I possibly can so when I want to travel confirmed for personal travel, I know I can go anywhere in the world and use only points.
I’ve flown almost 150 flights since the start of 2017, the vast majority on United and American. Some sprinkled in at KLM, Alitalia, British Airways and Lufthansa. I have both the United and American credit cards and put everything on those (mostly the United). Southwest doesn’t get me what matters to me. What if I want to redeem points for Hawaii? Or Anchorage? Calgary? London? Sydney? Shit, forget even those. What about Jackson, Wyoming? Or Telluride? United and American both serve about 350 destinations each worldwide. Southwest is just shy of 100. Throw in alliances and you can go literally anywhere.
I want a confirmed window seat with extra legroom (economy plus/main cabin extra) at the least, and the ability to upgrade or even just confirm myself in business/first. Besides all that, they just have bigger fleets. So I know if I want to fly to simple places like Tampa, or Austin, or Los Angeles...I know United or American will have better frequency that will likely allow me to go nonstop to my destination at the time I want. I also like that if United can’t get me there, American can back me up. Weather in Dallas? Maybe United can operate when American can’t. Or vice versa. If something goes wrong on a Southwest flight, you’re stuck with Southwest. They don’t partner with anyone to get you home.
Southwest doesn’t do any of that for me. I get the appeal of them, though. The flexibility to change flights, etc. is really nice. They market themselves really well to a leisure traveler that only flies once every year.
That’s just not me though. Like I said, not a bad airline by any means, but they just don’t fit what I’m looking for. When I book a confirmed ticket, it’s RARE I need to cancel it or change it. So that kind of stuff doesn’t matter to me. The credit cards for UA and AA allow me to check bags on those confirmed tickets to, not that I ever really do. But if I wanted to, I could for free.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Long story short, Southwest is just fine at what they do.