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Southwest Airlines announced today that it is rebranding its fare classes along with introducing some new benefits for co-branded Rapid Rewards® cardholders and elite members. The new names are a bit confusing, but so are most things that Southwest is doing these days.
New Fare Names
Southwest used to offer Business Select, Anytime, Wanna Get Away Plus, and Wanna Get Away fare classes. Each had their own benefits and customers. These will be rebranded in Q3 2025 as Choice Extra, Choice Preferred, Choice, and Basic. I think these new names are not clear and I doubt consumers will understand the differences.
New Cardholder Benefits
Cardmembers will have the opportunity to select a seat, regardless of fare type they purchased, receive earlier boarding, and receive their first checked bag free (for up to eight additional passengers traveling on the same reservation). They will continue to enjoy their current benefits, such as discounts on inflight purchases, bonus points on their cardmember anniversaries, and a one-time boost of 10,000 Companion Pass® qualifying points per calendar year.
New Elite Benefits
A-List and A-List Preferred members will receive preferred seating, checked bags (for up to eight additional passengers traveling on the same reservation), earlier boarding, and other inflight enhancements.
All checked bag benefits for elite members and credit cardholders begin on May 28th. Seating and boarding benefits will begin when Southwest begins selling and operating flights with assigned seating.
Anthony’s Take: Cardholders and elite members will be happy with these changes. Infrequent flyers will likely find themselves confused by the new fare names. We’ll see if any of this will be enough to make things right when Southwest has essentially abandoned everything that made it unique.
(Image Credits: Owen Lystrup via Unsplash and Southwest Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
