- They allow you to change your flight online, with no penalty!
- If you cancel your flight, they give you a credit which expires in a year. Better than nothing (with most airlines)!
- They have web only deals; make sure to book early. You can also use "Southwest Shortcuts" if you are flexible w/ dates: http://www.southwest.com/cgi-bin/lowFareFinderEntry
- You can sit anywhere you want on the plane. This is great if you travel alone.
- They only fly ONE type of plane: Boeing 737 for the curious. What does this mean? All their pilots know how to fly it, so if they have to change pilots, they can do so very quickly. This happens a lot in the airline industry, and if you have a pilot who can't operate a particular plane due to a takeover, there's either a delay (to find another pilot who can) or the flight is completely cancelled. This is common for a lot of airlines that use a variety of different airplanes. Not with Southwest. Of all the years I've taken Southwest, I've never experienced delays (except due to weather).
I recently flew to Los Angeles from San Jose using Southwest, and I had about $60 in credit that I had been holding from 2 months ago, from a cancelled flight I made. I used the credit, and my flight came out to be only $30 total. I can't complain about that, especially since I made the flight arrangements at the last minute. Since the flight is only really 30 mins long (it takes 10 mins to taxi when taking off and arriving), it was a pretty painless experience overall.
