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Companion Pass

Haipham2017
Adventurer B

Hi,

 

May my companion only travel with me 1/2 trip ? For example, I book a round trip from Boston to LA and stop at BWI. My companion lives in Baltimore so can he just fly from Baltimore to LAX with me as companion? On the return, can he just walk out at BWI? and continue to Boston?

 

Thank you,

 

Hai

10 REPLIES 10

Re: Companion Pass

dfwskier
Aviator A

 Hi

 

 Hope you are having a good weekend.

 

Actually you've asked a 2 part question.

 

1) "For example, I book a round trip from Boston to LA and stop at BWI. My companion lives in Baltimore so can he just fly from Baltimore to LAX with me as companion"  I don't think so. Your companpn should fly the same itinerary as you.

 

2)"On the return, can he just walk out at BWI? and (I) continue to Boston?" Yes because his start of travel is as it is for you.  As a courtesy though the companion should, as he is exiting the aircraft at BWI, tellthe crew that he is getting off early. Southwest verifies continuing passengers and if the count is off because he is missing, it will cause confusion.

 

Hint: you may want to buy  two 1 way tickets since what you want to do can't be accomplished with your round trip, but at least the return allows you to do what you want to do.

 

Good luck.

Re: Companion Pass

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

I’ll just add that in some rare occurrences booking a flight with a connection comes out cheaper when you book it as two separate reservations.  If you split the first flight into 2 reservations (BOS-BWI and BWI-LAX) it could possibly be cheaper AND allow you to add the companion to the second half.  In this case you could also factor in the cost of the flight for the companion to see if it’s cheaper booking separately and adding a companion or booking one reservation for you and also purchasing a flight BWI-LAX for the companion.  The main concern with doing this is if you have 2 separate reservations and the first gets delayed causing you to miss the 2nd flight you would be considered a no-show.  If it’s one reservation for the entire journey then Southwest would accommodate you for the 2nd leg.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Companion Pass

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

...he main concern with doing this is if you have 2 separate reservations and the first gets delayed causing you to miss the 2nd flight you would be considered a no-show.  If it’s one reservation for the entire journey then Southwest would accommodate you for the 2nd leg.

 

--TheMiddleSeat


That sounds a little doomsday - you most likely would still be re-accomodated if possible and depending on other delays that may be affecting the system, athough the terms on the ticket may not require Southwest to do so in that case.

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Companion Pass

dfwskier
Aviator A

@DancingDavidE wrote:

@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

...he main concern with doing this is if you have 2 separate reservations and the first gets delayed causing you to miss the 2nd flight you would be considered a no-show.  If it’s one reservation for the entire journey then Southwest would accommodate you for the 2nd leg.

 

--TheMiddleSeat


That sounds a little doomsday - you most likely would still be re-accomodated if possible and depending on other delays that may be affecting the system, athough the terms on the ticket may not require Southwest to do so in that case.

 

 

 

 



@DancingDavidE wrote:

@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

...he main concern with doing this is if you have 2 separate reservations and the first gets delayed causing you to miss the 2nd flight you would be considered a no-show.  If it’s one reservation for the entire journey then Southwest would accommodate you for the 2nd leg.

 

--TheMiddleSeat


That sounds a little doomsday - you most likely would still be re-accomodated if possible and depending on other delays that may be affecting the system, athough the terms on the ticket may not require Southwest to do so in that case.

 

 

 

 


In the old Wright amendment days when you couldn't fly outside of the Wright area -- even by connection, I used to buy two one ways (ie DAL/MCI , MCI/DEN)  all the time. The few times my flight from DAL was delayed enough to cause me to miss the second flight, Southwest put me on a later flight.

 

The rule basically was that the phantom "connection" (time on ground between flights) would have had to be a legal one.

Re: Companion Pass

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@dfwskier wrote:

In the old Wright amendment days when you couldn't fly outside of the Wright area -- even by connection, I used to buy two one ways (ie DAL/MCI , MCI/DEN)  all the time. The few times my flight from DAL was delayed enough to cause me to miss the second flight, Southwest put me on a later flight.

 

The rule basically was that the phantom "connection" (time on ground between flights) would have had to be a legal one.


Booking the separate one-ways will have some appeal - you could for instance allow time to eat lunch at O'Brycki's in the BWI airport, where Southwest's "packaged" connections are often a little short on time for a liesurely lunch, especially at a busy hub like BWI.

 

@TheMiddleSeatmentioned getting cheaper flights sometimes - my first thought is that you wouldn't find that most cases where your one-ways were the same flights as the packaged connection. BUT, you may see possibilities in that area where because you split the legs over a wider layover you get into a cheaper flights in the a.m. or p.m. times that aren't as popular.

 

All of our advice to book one-ways - by the way mainly applies of course if you are carrying on luggage. If you checked luggage, then you'll have to retrieve it and re-check it at BWI in both directions which may not be appealing. You probably knew this already, but I wanted to recap it here in case someone searches the forum and might need that to be stated explicitly.

 

You should also look at inbound and outbout as separate one-way or combination flights - your plan to have the "hidden city" companion might work on the LAX-BWI-BOS route where the companion could just get off - this isn't according to the terms necessarily, I'd had for you to jeapordize your CP status. But let's say it does work, is allowable - book as the packaged connection then.

 

For the BOS-BWI-LAX route this won't work at all, the companion would have to board with you, if they "no showed" at BOS their ticket would be cancled at that time. So although he might have a boarding pass and be able to get inside the airport in BWI, it would be invalidated before you got to BWI and not allowed for boarding. 

 

Fun discussion - let us know how things look so far!

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Companion Pass

Haipham2017
Adventurer B

"If you split the first flight into 2 reservations (BOS-BWI and BWI-LAX) it could possibly be cheaper AND allow you to add the companion to the second half.  In this case you could also factor in the cost of the flight for the companion to see if it’s cheaper booking separately and adding a companion or booking one reservation for you and also purchasing a flight BWI-LAX for the companion"

 

I think you can't book 2 tickets  on the same day, SW system will cancel your reservation

Re: Companion Pass

chgoflyer
Aviator A
Solution

@Haipham2017 wrote:

"If you split the first flight into 2 reservations (BOS-BWI and BWI-LAX) it could possibly be cheaper AND allow you to add the companion to the second half.  In this case you could also factor in the cost of the flight for the companion to see if it’s cheaper booking separately and adding a companion or booking one reservation for you and also purchasing a flight BWI-LAX for the companion"

 

I think you can't book 2 tickets  on the same day, SW system will cancel your reservation


 

In this scenario you'd be fine, as the flights are sequential. People do this all the time.

 

You could not, however, book something like a BOS-BWI and also a BOS-LAX on the same day.

Re: Companion Pass

Haipham2017
Adventurer B

chgoflyer wrote: "

In this scenario you'd be fine, as the flights are sequential. People do this all the time.

 

You could not, however, book something like a BOS-BWI and also a BOS-LAX on the same day."

 

Thanks so I misunderstood the rules, I thought you just can't book 2 tickets the same. It is great since the flight from BOS to BWI usually cheaper than the flight from BWI to LAX.

Re: Companion Pass

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

This reminds me of another activity that is discouraged, the other airlines will cancel tickets if they know you are doing this, I'm not sure what Southwest's opinion is:

 

Buy one set of RT tickets from BWI to LAX, and buy a second seet of RT tickets from BOS to BWI, "nesting" the BWI-LAX round trip inside the BOS-BWI round trip.

 

Then you could add the companion just to the BWI-LAX round trip ticket.

 

The reservation system may not like this though. On Southwest it woulnd't normally affect pricing, they don't offer savings for RT vs separate one-way tickets like other airlines, but I think they still prefer you not to book this way, although it would be another way to solve the companion booking issue originally described above.

 

I'd confirm if this was allowed or not before doing it, you don't want to jeapordize your status by violating the terms.

 

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.