I found this article interesting.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/southwest-companion-pass-credit-card-offer-18656913.php
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/southwest-companion-pass-credit-card-offer-18656913.php
If you are planning on traveling
- Thread starter mxz800
- Start date
I fly SW by choice everywhere I go. I've been forced on to American and United in the last couple of years and each time it's a shit-show. I'll walk before I book on Delta as well.
I took a 2 leg flight to get to Detroit a few months ago on SW to avoid Delta for example.
I've flown over 800K miles on SW in 2023 alone with no problems and maybe only 3 or 4 delays. For me, they are the best airline out there.
How did you fly 800K miles in a year on Southwest? Their longest flight is only 2500 miles that's flying their longest leg every business day of the year and half the weekends.
Luckily I don't have to fly much anymore.
Same. I'll only fly another airline if I have no option with SW.
For work travel, I buy the business select ticket so I'm one of the first 10 or so people on the plane and get my choice of seat, and then put my earbuds in and turn the RBF up to 11 for any passerby that looks like someone i don't want to sit next to.
As for the other airlines, it's always delays and missed connections. American probably the worst in that regard, and I think I've had the least drama with United, but they all play the bait and switch game where they show one price for the ticket and then want another $20-$100 per leg for anything that isn't a middle seat behind the engines. About once a year I'll book another airline because it offers better timing than the SW flight and I regret it every single time.
I fly to 3-4 cities a week. This week it’s Seattle, Boise, and Denver. Next, it’s Austin, and Tampa. Then back to Seattle and Denver.
It will slow down in August when a client gives us one very large project, rather than stand alone ED’s in 20+ cities. Then it will be once a week to Salt Lake City
Looking at 23, it was 775,000 miles. There was two trips to HI and 1 to AK. HI was on SW, AK was on Alaska.
Today I type this from 32000 ft above Nevada on my way to Scumattle
I guess I can see that if you're not flying with a good status. Diamond or Platinum on Delta makes it a great airline to fly and I've never had extra fees plus I get the benefit of direct flights most anywhere that I need to go so no connections. The only thing we have to worry about is what drink I want on the flights or what food is being served in the clubs.
That's the problem with the legacy airlines. You have to chose one and fly on them for 3 years in the cramped seats in the back to get anything on them. I used to fly a lot on Northwest back in the day. As long as on time wasn't an issue they were a great airline.
The "club" levels of any of the big 3 airlines are filled with people I'd rather not be seen with most of the time...
I don't stay at hotels that have bellmen or a concierge either....
I don't fly enough to get any status.
Having a nonstop flight is a criteria that will get me to use an airline other than SW, but that hasn't really happened since I was flying out of Denver. In a mid-market like OKC, connections are a fact of life if my destination isn't a hub or at least a major airport (it rarely is). If I have a layover either way, Southwest has been the best for me at getting me there on time to catch my connection, and more opportunities to pick a layover at least somewhat in between my origin and destination so I'm not spending seat time flying a sixth of the way across the country in the wrong direction.
On the topic of the thread...companion passes are pretty awesome. It's been a few years, but I did that with Alaska airlines and my wife and I took an 8 day trip to Alaska that ended up coming in under $2k for the whole trip. It helped that we were staying with friends, who took us out in their boats and on their ATVs and let us use their vehicle, etc so we basically just had to pay flights for one of us plus the food we ate and beer we (ok, mostly I) drank.
Nowadays we drive most places. I don't enjoy flying and since I fly for work I try not to do it for pleasure, and I definitely don't like doing it with a wife and 2 kids.
Nowadays we drive most places. I don't enjoy flying and since I fly for work I try not to do it for pleasure, and I definitely don't like doing it with a wife and 2 kids.
I would need to move if I flew that much. There are very few direct flights to anywhere from here. Power plants are also in BFE so there's always driving involved. I'm driving 5 hours today to one. I drove to Nochagdoches, TX to one because I had to go to McAlster, OK the next week. Flying would have taken 3 hours to driving back and forth to the closest airports plus waiting for planes, luggage, and rental cars.
Last edited:
I'd probably just find a new job, lol.
I've been known to drive for the kind of trip most people would fly for. I've had to go to Kansas City a couple of times in the last year. It's a 6 hour drive but with basically no direct flights, driving is still faster. I made a trip to Omaha and realized when I was already there that I could have driven in the same amount of time (total door to door time from my house). Since then I've started checking the drive time on everything before I book flights, unless it's something obvious like on the coasts.
My wife isn't into travel much anymore... and the last thing I want to do it more travel so we rarely use the companion status I've had for the better part of a decade. We will sometime to a weekend trip to Salt Lake or Boise but we just had rather stay at home.
I have hundreds of thousands of Southwest Points. I use them to buy christmas presents every year through the Southwest "store" and I convert them into gift cards to buy stuff from Amazon. That's how I get my "customer bonus" from them.
Similar threads
