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Easy Ways to Fly Like a Pro With Southwest Airlines

July 12, 2022 1 Comment

My absolute favorite way to fly is on Southwest Airlines using my flight points. Southwest has more comfortable seats than my preferred budget airline, Spirit. Both airlines have good customer service and pristine plane interiors. However, Southwest has more leg space than budget flights, and the seats even recline slightly! Each passenger also gets one carry-on and one checked bag included with their flight cost, saving you from surprise extra fees at checkout. If I’m taking a flight longer than two hours, I skip Spirit and book with Southwest. Here are a couple of my tips for flying Southwest!

CHASE Southwest Credit Card

When I started travel nursing, a friend introduced me to Chase’s Southwest Airlines credit card. No, this is not sponsored; this card is worth the hype! You can use it on any purchases in your daily life to earn 1 Southwest flight point per dollar spent. Certain purchase types, like partnered hotels, rental cars, and Southwest flight tickets, earn you double the points! I put all my monthly bills or large purchases onto this card and immediately pay them off. This practice keeps my credit usage in my ideal range, yet it wins me MANY free flight points. We usually fly for free using these points once every 3-6 months round-trip. When I first applied for the card, I got 50,000 flight points translated into two round-trip tickets just for signing up. Unlike Spirit’s point program, Southwest Rapid Rewards points never expire.

Tips for Getting Better Seats

The only aspect of flying Southwest that I don’t like is that you can’t pick your own seat. Southwest requires you to check into your flight 24 hours in advance to be sorted into groups A, B, and C. You can check in online or via the Southwest app. How high you rank depends on how fast you check in! On gate arrival, you board in order of the group and ticket number. It’s essentially an open seating policy; once it’s your turn to get on the plane, it’s a free-for-all to pick a seat! This unique boarding process can baffle infrequent fliers, and it is easy to end up in group C if you don’t know what you’re doing. Finding nearby seats for companions or small children can be difficult if you board last.

You can pay a high premium for A-list boarding as a business professional, or anyone can pay an extra $20 per ticket for automatic check-in. We have ended up scrambling for seats in group C, so we always purchase the automatic check-in! We’re usually placed in the middle of group A, giving us plenty of seat options. If you get stuck in group C, keep in mind that they will let you check your carry-on for free because space is tight by the time you finally get on the plane! We love flying Southwest when we can pick great seats without stress. I would highly recommend trying the $20 automatic check-in upgrade.

For tips on minimizing costs and traveling “cheap,” check out my article “Flying Cheap: The Hopper App and Spirit Airlines.”

Which airline do you usually fly through? Should we try Delta or American Airlines? What cost-saving tips do you have for flying? Leave a comment below!

Flying Cheap: The Hopper App and Spirit Airlines

People frequently ask me how I fly so often and how I keep it cheap. I don’t know if I could ever consider flying “cheap,” but I do use some specific tools to keep costs down! These include utilizing the Hopper app to pick my flights and booking through Spirit Airlines.

(Disclaimer: This article is not sponsored, paid, or intended to be interpreted as advertisement in any way.)

The Hopper App

My favorite tool for purchasing flights is an app called Hopper. This app allows you to input tentative flight dates into their scheduler, giving you a report of prices for each airline for those dates. Hopper’s most useful function, however, is that it predicts whether your flight might be cheaper to purchase at a later date and can tell you exactly when to buy them for the best deal.
I usually input my trip dates into the app early in the planning process, and it will give me update notifications about once per week. I always wait until I can get the best deal, especially if I’m taking a short flight and can wait until the last minute to book it.

The Hopper app also provides a color-coded calendar to show you the cheapest days of the week on average to fly. Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to have the lowest prices, and many airlines send discounts to their email list specifically for Tuesday and Wednesday flights. Hopper provides the price calendar for flights, hotel bookings, and car rentals. Note: The app also offers to “freeze” the price that a vendor gives you even if you aren’t ready to book yet, but that comes with extra charges from Hopper. I haven’t used that service yet.

Fun fact: Hopper plants four trees with Eden Reforestation Project for every booking made through the app!

Spirit Airlines

My favorite affordable airline is Spirit. Spirit lets you “build your own flight” and pay only for exactly what you need. I have never had a Spirit flight delayed or canceled (knock on wood), and they tend to have the cheapest options if you don’t need a checked bag or carry-on. This option is perfect for short flights to visit my family out-of-state, so consider this when you know you’ll have laundry access after you arrive.

Tip: Pay the extra fee to sit in the emergency access seats! The emergency seats have much more legroom than the standard option! Passengers sitting in the emergency row must be at least 15 years old, able to read and understand English, not under the influence of alcohol or drugs (no in-flight drinks!), and be able to lift the door handle to open the emergency exit. If you meet these criteria, emergency access seats by the window are the way to go! We have tried the upgraded front-row seats that Spirit advertises but felt like they weren’t worth the money. They only offer more arm wiggle room than emergency row and standard seats; the cushions are not more comfortable, and the seats still do not lean back.

View out Spirit Airlines window — Our view out Spirit Airlines window

Southwest Airlines

Another way that I save money on flights is by using my Southwest Airlines credit card and flight points. Click here to find out, “Easy Ways to Fly Like a Pro With Southwest Airlines“!