Southwest Airlines vs. Hidden Fees on Other Airlines

Jim Davis wrote:
"Janet Wilder" wrote in message
...
Southwest has a little program you can download called "Ding!" It alerts
you to cheap flights for cities you have set up. I flew in to Philadelphia
last August from Harlingen, Texas via San Antonio for the outgoing and
Houston Hobby for the return trip and got a really good price as compared
to straight website booking.

Southwest is great if you know where you're going 21 days in advance, and
don't mind extra time for a few stops. If your plans can tolerate it, it's
the best way to go. Some of us travel on last minute one ways. In our
case, Southwest can, at times, be more expensive and time consuming.

All 4 flights came in early and my luggage traveled perfectly even though
I had to change planes.

They've always been great with luggage. I never lost a bag while flying
with them.

I'm really happy with Southwest. I only wish they flew more places and
could use IAH.

They *do* (or did) have a flight or two at IAH, but thinking about it, I
don't recall seeing their ticket counter in Terminal A lately. (Maybe I
just haven't paid attention.)



I think there is some kind of FAA problem with their flying into IAH.

--
Janet Wilder
Bad spelling. Bad punctuation
Good Friends. Good Life

jessica_smith_nyc wrote:
Glad one Airline gets it...........

Southwest has a lot of relatively short haul flights of under 500 miles,
i.e. LA area to SF Bay Area. For many people, it's a toss-up between
driving and flying then renting a car, especially when there are
multiple passengers in their party. Annoy people too much, and they just
drive. Between the overhead time of being at the airport an hour early,
waiting for luggage, waiting for a rental car, dealing with delays, and
having to conform to the airline's schedules, it's only about a three
hour difference between driving and flying.

In article ,
Jim Davis wrote:

Southwest is great if you know where you're going 21 days in advance, and
don't mind extra time for a few stops.

It's exactly the other way around, in my experience. Their last-minute
walk-up fares are usually lower than those of legacy carriers,
and they have more nonstops from my local airport than the next two
carriers combined.

In general, Southwest is so far ahead of other airlines, it's not
even funny. Too bad they don't fly international.

In general, Southwest is so far ahead of other airlines, it's not
even funny. Too bad they don't fly international.They are on the verge of doing so with the first country being Canada
and a codeshare with Westjet. With their 737 fleet, you'd expect them
to follow up with Mexico and some of the Caribbean. At least its a
start.

Cheers! -- Rik


--
Rik Brown
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com

Actually, the above missed a lot of things. Now - on to the real world.

Let's say I have to get to Chicago, on Monday 9/22. (This is realistic
for
me.)

Houston to Chicago, with a carry-on and computer case.
Southwest - $ 349.00 one way. (Some flights have a stop in St. Louis)
Continental - $ 349.00 one way.
I'll take CO and get a sandwich & bag of chips too.For those of us that live in St. Louis hand raised, many Southwest
flights indeed do stop here giving us a mini-hub that takes us direct
to many other Southwest cities. Guess we're more lucky than
somesmile. -- Rik

ps: They also keep the prices on the legacy carries somewhat lower for
us on the cities that they serve.


--
Rik Brown
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com

"Rik Brown" wrote in message
...

In general, Southwest is so far ahead of other airlines, it's not
even funny. Too bad they don't fly international.They are on the verge
of doing so with the first country being Canada
and a codeshare with Westjet. With their 737 fleet, you'd expect them
to follow up with Mexico and some of the Caribbean. At least its a
start.

You never know what will happen. You mention their 737 fleet. I think
that's part of their success. Costs are usually lower and easier to control
when your equipment is all the same. Manufacturing companies have proven
over the years that it's best to have a lot of the same equipment than a
little bit of everything.

Second; Their employees seem to care, and are willing to "go the extra
mile" I have yet to experience a rude WN employee.

SMS wrote:

jessica_smith_nyc wrote:

Glad one Airline gets it...........


Southwest has a lot of relatively short haul flights of under 500 miles,
i.e. LA area to SF Bay Area. For many people, it's a toss-up between
driving and flying then renting a car, especially when there are
multiple passengers in their party. Annoy people too much, and they just
drive. Between the overhead time of being at the airport an hour early,
waiting for luggage, waiting for a rental car, dealing with delays, and
having to conform to the airline's schedules, it's only about a three
hour difference between driving and flying.

There one advantage of all of the American Eagle flights between the Bay
Area and the Southern California. You don't have to worry about space
for you rollaboard. You just give it up plane side.
There are plenty of reasonse for not spending that extra 3 hours of
driving. What is this "waiting for a rental car"? On arrival at SNA, I
walk across the roadway from the terminal, go down to floor 0, walk up
the car and drive off.

VS wrote:

In article ,
Jim Davis wrote:


Southwest is great if you know where you're going 21 days in advance, and
don't mind extra time for a few stops.


It's exactly the other way around, in my experience. Their last-minute
walk-up fares are usually lower than those of legacy carriers,

Right. Often their advance purchase cheapest fares sell out before other
carriers, so the end up costing people more who don't look elsewhere.
I looked at SNA-SJC for AA and Southwes, and LGB-SJC for Jet Blue, for
few days over Christmas. AA had the lowest fare for the times I needed.
Southwest was 2nd, and Jet Blue was highest.