I Love Southwest Airlines

Or should I say LUV, which is their ticker symbol?

Southwest Airlines is the only airline I know that will not charge you a fee for changing or canceling a non-refundable ticket. Things come up all the time. You can’t make it to your brother’s place or you want to go on a different date. If you bought your ticket from any other airline, you will have to pay $50, or sometimes $100, to change your ticket. Not with Southwest. When you make a change, you get 100% credit for what you paid on your original ticket. If you have to cancel the trip altogether, you don’t get your money back but you’ll get a “store credit” valid for 12 months after the date you originally bought the ticket. And that credit isn’t tied down to your name either. You can let anybody in your family or even your friend use it. And you can break it apart and use it on multiple tickets if you have a large credit. That’s very fair.

This “no change fee” policy also allows you to take advantage of fare sales. If the fare comes down after you bought your ticket, you can just rebook the same flight at lower fare, pocketing a credit for the difference for future trips. Try doing that with any other airline and you will have to fork over $50-100 first which negates the fare difference.

What about the no-assigned seat boarding procedure everybody mentions whenever Southwest comes up in a conversation? No big deal. You get on, you get off and move on to your business. That’s the way an airline should be.

Go Southwest, go!

2.2% Rewards Card $444 Bonus

Earn 2.2% toward travel on all purchases with Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard. No caps and no foreign transaction fees. 40,000 bonus points if you make $1,000 or more in purchases in the first 90 days. $89 annual fee waived in the first year (40,000 bonus miles pay for 5 more years after that). Learn More

Software picked, likely related posts:

• Carnivals: Week of 11/6/2006
• Spot Fake Reviews, Favorite Airlines
• Just Say No to Fee Surcharges

Comments

• Buy My Book

  

• Topics

  • Banking and Credit Cards
  • Career and Income
  • Insurance
  • Investing
  • Mortgage and Loans
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Spending
  • Taxes
• 
  

• Connect

  Follow @TheFinanceBuff
  
  
  
  

• Tags

  401k 529 plan advisor AMT annuity asset allocation bailout bonds books broker BY2 capital gains car CD checking account credit card credit score debit card ETF Flexible Spending Account How to Refi HSA I Bonds index fund IRA little book market timing math misinformed mortgage mutual fund Reader Questions rebalancing refi replacing Money retirement Roth roundup RSU Social Security software strapped tax deduction tax prep TIPS

• Privacy Policy

  We respect your privacy. See our privacy policy for details.

• FTC Disclosure

  Please note that The Finance Buff has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned here. The Finance Buff may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant.