As most of my friends know, I’m a Southwest Airlines fanboy. I love the airline. I do. They have employees that deeply care about their passengers and have great, easy-to-follow, very business-friendly rules.
Now … some of you will complain about no first class. OK, you got me on this one. If you fly so much that you get 1K on United or Platinum on Delta or __(any airline)__ then you win. Short of that, if you’re just flying once in a while, business or personal, you’re probably flying coach anyway.
Here is why you should fly Southwest if they have the route you’re on. Only one reason.
NO TICKET CHANGE FEES.
Other airlines will charge you $150 – $250 in just a transaction fee to change your ticket. This is not including the price difference between your old ticket and new ticket. That is always going to be an upgrade charge. In fact, this is an important note. Let’s talk for a minute about airfares. While I don’t pretend to fully know the fares and how they are calculated, I do understand essential supply and demand, and all airlines follow this to a certain degree. And of course, there are exceptions, but, in general, the more notice you have (14 days, 21 days, 30 days), the better your ticket price will be. As you get closer and closer to the departure date, the rate may dramatically increase. This might depend on how many seats on the plane have actually sold. Like anything, the last 5% or 10% is more valuable and will have higher rates. If you don’t buy that seat, someone else will. So a seat on the same flight 30 days out might be $120.00, while day of departure might be $520.00. Make sense?
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