So I just booked flights and I just want to express how disappointed I was to see a price increase in early bird fees since you don’t have a firm policy about not saving seats. Please see email below. While I know that it’s open seating, there should be some airline accountability and process for those of us who actually pay the early bird fee. It sounds like, based on the response below, that I can tell all my friends not to buy early bird for everyone, but to save seats. Us included :(**Dear Nancy,**We sincerely apologize for your less than pleasant experience during your travel with us on November **. We welcome the opportunity to address your concerns.**We regret learning of your disappointment with our open-seating policy. Southwest has never assigned seats, and, in all honesty, we've had great results over the years. We don’t have a specific policy regarding saving seats, and our Flight Attendants typically don’t prevent Customers from saving seats unless it interferes with our boarding process. While we understand that Customers want to sit by their friends and family members and enjoy each other’s company, our hope is that early boarding Customers will not save too many seats for their traveling companions as it can be frustrating to a Customer when his*her seat of choice is being saved. In the end, we've found that our Customers are overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining our open-seating policy. **Our open-seating policy comes with good points and challenges, and I am sorry you were disappointed with the handling of this particular situation. However, retaining your future patronage is very important to us, and we want to offer you an incentive to fly with us again soon. As a gesture of goodwill, we’ve issued you each a $** Southwest LUV Voucher, which will arrive in a separate email within the next ** days. Instructions for use will be printed on the voucher. We know that open seating is not preferable for every Customer, and we have included your concern in our monthly summary for our Senior Leaders.**We truly appreciate your patronage, and we look forward to welcoming you onboard again soon.**Sincerely,**Ashley Shepard, Southwest Airlines**The file reference number for your email is *************.
GetHuman1752776 did not yet indicate what Southwest Airlines should do to make this right.