Southwest takes the luv out of flying | Coffee Break Ep48 | 3-11-25
Frequent Miler on the Air
Frequent Miler
4.9 • 640 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Starting May 28 of this year, Southwest will be making some major changes to the things we've known and loved. For example Most people will be losing free checked bags on Southwest starting May 28 of this year, they'll be introducing basic economy, flight credits will now expire (after 6-12 months depending on what type of fare you bought) and the value of points will become much more variable.
(01:49) - Commenter Brad says: "I’m an accountant who completely understands the math of cutting expenses or raising revenues to increase profit... I don’t understand, though, what the business strategy is here. Building a strategy that revolves around hoping customers won’t notice you’re charging them more for a worse product doesn’t seem like the kind of pitch that would get you an A in an MBA strategy class."
Read the original post where this comment appeared here.
(03:38) - 2 Bags No longer Fly Free for Most (pricing not yet disclosed)
(05:58) - Basic economy fares
(06:33) - Flight credits will expire (From May 28, 2025)
(08:29) - Variable redemption rates
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Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Voyescape podcast. |
| 0:03.9 | You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. |
| 0:11.9 | Welcome to coffee break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. |
| 0:16.7 | And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less for your money back. |
| 0:21.9 | Southwest takes the love out of flying. Starting on May 28, 2025, it has been announced that |
| 0:29.3 | Southwest is completely destroying everything that you knew and loved about the airline, if you |
| 0:34.9 | loved them before, because beginning on May 28th, bags will no longer fly free for most customers. |
| 0:41.2 | That's going to be completely changing and we'll talk more about what that means in a minute. |
| 0:45.2 | They are also going to be introducing a basic economy type fair starting on May 28. |
| 0:50.7 | We all love basic economy. |
| 0:53.9 | Right, right. Yeah. So if you knew and loved that |
| 0:57.3 | elsewhere, I guess you'll love it here, but it does not feel like the airline of love anymore. |
| 1:03.0 | Flight credits are now going to expire. So if you loved the policy of flight credits never |
| 1:07.9 | expiring, that only began like within the last couple of years, I think. |
| 1:12.2 | Well, that's no longer going to be the case. They're going to be valid for either six months or |
| 1:16.9 | 12 months, depending on the type of ferry you bought. And the value of your points will now become |
| 1:22.0 | completely unpredictable with Southwest Airlines. Again, this all begins on May 28th, and this comes on the heels of just |
| 1:28.8 | last week, Southwest gutting its program on the earnings side, where the less expensive fares |
| 1:35.1 | want to get away and want to get away plus are now earning far fewer points than they were before, |
| 1:40.3 | all part of a huge cost-cutting measure. And of course, on top of all of this, we expect that |
| 1:45.1 | they will begin charging for assigned seating at some point in the foreseeable future here. So |
| 1:49.9 | a lot of strange news coming out of Southwest. Yeah. I mean, Southwest has just, you know, |
... |
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