Southwest changes, Southwest will still be the same (On Nick’s mind)

In the 20+ years that I’ve been flying as a paying adult, I’ve flown Southwest airlines far more than any other airline in the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to more than 60 countries and to enjoy some of the fanciest business and first class products in the world over the past decade, but despite my enjoyment of fancy flying, I have chosen Southwest for the vast majority of our domestic trips, which has meant that I haven’t flown any other airline nearly as many times (nor nearly as many miles I’d bet). We’ve consistently chosen Southwest for many years because they’re different. Unfortunately, Southwest will soon become almost the same as any other domestic carrier. What now? Will I still choose Southwest?

Southwest changes make them less different

For as long as I can remember, Southwest was different. From the plastic boarding cards I remember in the early 00’s to the time a flight attended serenaded my flight as we taxied to our gate with the closing lyrics, “We hope you’ve enjoyed our hospitality, marry one of us and you’ll fly for free”. Southwest has often put a smile on my face.

Big changes are on the way next month that will shake things up entirely. Many of the things that have long made my family loyal to Southwest will end or change, such as:

• Bags Fly Free no more. While we’ve never needed 2 checked bags per passenger in my family, we almost always travel with a checked bag or two. We just spent the Easter holiday visiting family and we packed an entire suitcase full of gifts for our new niece (and my wife filled it for the return trip with some great local finds from Facebook marketplace). Free checked bags has been a major advantage for Southwest since we haven’t had a United credit cards for years and have never had one with Delta or JetBlue.
• Boarding policy. This isn’t changing next month, but rather when Southwest begins selling seating assignments later this year for travel next year. I know that many people hate Southwest’s boarding process. In the 20+ years I’ve been flying Southwest, it has never bothered me in the slightest. Before kids, I would often carry a $50 bill in my pocket to offer someone to switch seats if my wife and I needed it, but we never had to use it. In the 7+ years since our first son was born, we’ve continuously had at least one kid under 6 years of age, so we’ve been boarding after “A” group without worry about check-in time. We’ve never had a problem getting our preferred seats near the back of the plane.
• Redemption rates that we could count on. While I love to get far outsized value as much as anyone, it has been convenient to know what I could expect from Southwest points in terms of purchasing power as compared to cash rates. We never got incredible value, but we knew we wouldn’t get poor value, which was a competitive advantage over collecting competitor miles for domestic travel.
• Flight credit that never expires. This was a pandemic-era change, but we’ve loved having the ability to book now and change plans later without being boxed into an expiration date on flight credit. I haven’t hesitated to book Southwest cash tickets even when plans weren’t solidified. Moving forward, I will be far more hesitant to book Southwest flights with cash, particularly for travel far in advance since a cancellation close to departure may leave me with a flight credit due to expire without much time to use it.
• Happy, bubbly employees (usually). My experiences with Southwest employees have been largely positive over the years. Not every interaction has been perfect, but flight attendants in particular have often been notably cheerful. With cuts to staff events, layoffs, and policy changes sure to sour customers on the airline, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a shift in attitude among employees.

Changes coming in the above areas will not make Southwest remarkably worse than competitor airlines, it will just make Southwest more similar to the competition. As disappointed as I am in all of the above, I’m not sure that the changes will yet chase me away from Southwest.

Southwest will still be the same

I don’t love the ways that Southwest will soon be different (or less different from competitors depending on your perspective). However, some key things are either staying the same or will effectively be the same for my family.

• The hard product isn’t changing (yet). Let me be clear: Southwest cabins and seats aren’t special compared to other airlines. The part of the product that has kept us coming back is the consistency in the model of plane. Southwest exclusively flies 737s, so there is a consistency of product that matters. My wife loves to travel, but it causes her a great deal of anxiety (I know she’s not alone there!). The consistency of Southwest’s product means that every plane hass a 3-3 seating layout that isn’t going to make her feel extra claustrophobic. For the time being, this will continue to be a factor that might make us choose Southwest, though it will feel far more like a compromise than it once did.
• The Southwest Companion Pass remains a great deal. We have had a Companion Pass in our household every year for more than a decade. It has gotten more use some years than others, but we have long valued having it as it has long made Southwest the better option (even considering increased prices we’ve seen on Southwest in recent years). I wrote posts for years asking whether the Companion Pass was still worth it, and year after year the answer was a clear yes. Contrary to a commonly flawed logic, Southwest points are not worth double for Companion Pass holders, but the pass nonetheless helps us save year after year.
• We’ll still get a free bag x 4 and priority boarding. This is because my wife has the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority credit card. Cardholders will get 1 free checked bag per passenger for up to 8 passengers on the same reservation (plus one for their companion if they are a companion pass holder). This means that our family could still check up to 4 bags. While that’s half the allowance today, I don’t think we’ve ever checked more than four bags anyway. And since the Priority card comes with an annual $75 Southwest credit and 7,500 points at anniversary, we easily justify the $149 annual fee even before whatever seating benefit they offer (they’ve said that it will offer a seating benefit, but we don’t yet have details).
• Flexibility might allow us to take advantage of outsized redemption. While I don’t love the new dynamic pricing model, there is a chance that we’ll be able to take advantage of those situations where flights provide outsized value thanks to greater-than-average flexibility in terms of dates and times.

Southwest has certainly lost some of its luster, but the truth is that the above will probably keep us loyal to Southwest, but with less enthusiasm.

Southwest points are less valuable now. Southwest points about to be more valuable.

I recently updated our Reasonable Redemption Value for Southwest Rapid Rewards points. I found that points are on average less valuable than they were previously.

At the same time, points value for low-demand flights (which is to say the cheapest flights in most cases) has increased. An obvious play in some situations will be to book a cheap Wanna Get Away Plus fare at elevated value per point, looking to same-day change to a more ideal itinerary (when this is possible). Southwest claims that they do not oversell flights. In the past, this has meant that if someone else has cancelled a seat after midnight local time on the day of departure, it would pop into inventory making space available for a same-day change to their flight. However, we recently had a reader report that a seat their family member cancelled did not go back into inventory. I thought that something must have been awry, but then as I walked to my Southwest gate over the weekend, I heard gate agents for 3 separate Southwest flights looking for volunteers to bump to a later flight. It is possible that all of those were a matter of weight-and-balance issues or crew needs….or perhaps the activist investors running Southwest have implemented changes to the overbooking policy that haven’t yet been published. I don’t know for sure.

However, the reason I say that Southwest points are about to be more valuable is because cash is going to become a less desirable means to book a Southwest flight. Points will become more valuable to me because cash bookings will become less attractive.

Here’s what I mean: Imagine that I wanted to book a flight today for travel on January 3rd, 2026 (perhaps for the way home at the end of the holiday break). Now imagine that plans change the day before departure (on January 2, 2026) and I needed to cancel that flight. If I paid with cash, I would end up with a Southwest credit due to expire (at best) in less than 4 months, on April 25, 2026. Worse yet, if my booking were for a Basic Economy fare (not yet available, but coming soon), I believe I’d end up with nothing since cancelled Basic Economy tickets will get credit that expires 6 months from date of purchase (which will have already passed). If I booked using Rapid Rewards points, those points would go right back into my account and the taxes and fees could be refunded to my original payment method with no expiration to track or worry about.

The flexibility of cancellations was long a selling point for Southwest Rapid Rewards points. The luster of that faded as all airlines began offering free cancellation and both Southwest and others removed expiration dates from flight credits. Now that flight credits are changing for the worse, I’ll be even more inclined to use my points for flight bookings — and I may even consider transferring points to Southwest in the right scenario. Now that they are a Bilt transfer partner, that gives me another option to top off my account.

A week or two ago, a member of our Facebook group asked a question about transferring points to Southwest Rapid Rewards. In response, I noted that I had never transferred a point to Southwest in the past because of the lack of ability to get outsized value for points and that I would likely never consider transferring to Southwest moving forward without a specific near-term use in mind since the dynamic pricing model makes it possible to get really poor value for points.

However (spoiler alert!), as we recorded this week’s podcast yesterday, I began relaying that story and sentiment when I caught myself and realized that the coming change to Southwest flight credits makes a material difference that might make transfers to Southwest more appealing than they have been in recent years.

The Companion Pass is still a great coupon

I noted this above, but the Southwest Companion Pass, at least thus far, remains a great deal. Earn 135,000 points or more in a single calendar year (or 125,000 points for cardholders) and a companion flies for free for the rest of that year and the entire following calendar year, paying only the taxes on the flight. The fact that this buy-one-get-one coupon can be used repeatedly makes if highly valuable for anyone who will primarily fly with a companion. In my own case, I’ve found that even in cases where Southwest is more expensive than competitors, the companion pass has meant that Southwest is a better deal for me.

I refer to the pass as a coupon intentionally because that’s how it functions. If you always travel as a pair, you can think of the companion pass as a repeatable coupon good for 50% off. It is important to make the distinction between it being that type of coupon versus being an instrument that makes points more valuable. A common misconception is that points are “worth double” if you have the Southwest Companion Pass. That’s simply not true. Here’s an explanation that I recently gave someone:

Imagine a passenger named Ryan, who doesn’t have a companion pass, and a passenger named Shane, who does have a companion pass.

Ryan doesn’t have a companion pass. Ryan wants to book a flight for 2 passengers that costs 10,000 points or $100 for 1 passenger. Ryan has two options:

1. Use $200 to buy tickets for two passengers
   or
2. Use 20,000 points to buy tickets for two passengers.

Using 20,000 points keeps $200 in Ryan’s pocket. Points are worth $0.01 per point in this example.

Shane has a companion pass. Shane wants to book a flight that costs 10,000 points or $100 for 1 passenger. ***Shane’s choice is different because Shane the Companion Pass essentially provides Shane with a Buy One, Get One coupon***. Shane has two options:

1. Use 10,000 points to buy tickets for two passengers
   or
2. Use $100 to buy tickets for two passengers

Using 10,000 points keeps $100 in Shane’s pocket. Points are worth $0.01 per point in this example. Using 10,000 points doesn’t keep $200 in Shane’s pocket because Shane wouldn’t have needed to spend $200 for those tickets. Shane’s cash option was to use $100. If Shane had zero points, Shane wouldn’t have to spend $200, Shane would have to spend $100.

The Companion Pass is a great coupon, but it doesn’t increase the value of the points any more than it increases the balance of your bank account, it just decreases the cost of 2 passengers. If you have $500,000 in the bank, you don’t become a millionaire with the Companion Pass, you just get the chance to pay less for your flights, whether with cash or with points.

To be clear, this isn’t a knock on the Companion Pass. In the example above, Shane gets to use half the points or half the cash that Ryan does. That’s an great deal whether Shane is using points or cash.

The changes stink, but probably won’t change my habits

The bottom line for me is that Southwest will likely continue to be my go-to airline for domestic travel as long as they continue to fly a consistent product, offer a checked bag for credit card holders, and maintain the Companion Pass in its current form.

We won’t be as enthusiastic about Southwest as we once were. And I won’t necessarily recommend Southwest to friends or family since there won’t be any benefit to choosing Southwest for those who aren’t particularly savvy to the types of things we do to travel more for less. Since they won’t get free checked bags, flight credits that won’t expire if plans change, and family boarding, there isn’t a reason for infrequent travelers to pick Southwest over American, United, Delta, etc.

However, thanks to the broader techniques we use to make travel more affordable, the coming changes won’t be as bad for us as they look. And despite never having transferred a point to Southwest in the past, I could now imagine transferring to Southwest for the better cancellation situation if I didn’t have enough points for an award and didn’t want to risk being stuck with an expiring travel credit.

If and when Southwest starts flying other plane models, reduces the value of the companion pass, or brings costs far enough out of line with competitors to make them more expensive even after considering the companion pass, our loyalty may change quickly. After all, I would rather collect an airline currency that I can use for outsized value with partners and/or earn elite status that will extend my benefits to numerous partner airlines the way I could with American, United, or Alaska. But between the Companion Pass and consistency of product and our ability to maintain similar benefits through credit cards, we don’t yet have enough reason to switch loyalty. Here’s hoping Southwest doesn’t push us the rest of the way.

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