My husband, two sons, and I have been loyal Southwest fans for many years. Southwest's many advantages have benefitted our family in countless ways—but my personal favorite benefit is the Companion Pass, which allowed our family to travel all over the country together.
Several years ago, the Southwest beverage napkin depicted a map indicating the cities they served. Our family would look at the map on the napkin during flights and think about the fun places we hoped to visit one day. During my sons' high school years, my husband and I told our guys they only could apply to colleges accessible to Southwest (if they hoped to attend a school beyond reasonable driving distance from home).
Using all of Southwest's amazing perks; we enjoyed visiting colleges with each son in great cities served by Southwest such as St. Louis, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. We researched potential colleges in all of the "Southwest cities" and eliminated schools we could not fly to on the only airline we cared to use.
Our sons eventually attended colleges in the Oklahoma City and Chicago vicinities. Our Southwest benefits made it easy to visit our sons during the school year and for our sons to return home during breaks. We were always grateful for the ease of scheduling and changing flights, using Rapid Rewards Points, excellent Customer Service, and the amazing Crews. With Southwest's generous baggage guidelines (and clever packing strategies), we even managed to move our sons' belongings to and from college with not one baggage fee ever.
Now, my husband and I are empty nesters, and Southwest no longer has a map on its beverage napkin. One son has moved to Washington D.C., another Southwest city, so we can easily visit him using our benefits advantageously. Periodically we take a vacation, but only to those places served by Southwest. Like many loyal fans, we are anxiously waiting for Hawaii service to begin, as it will be yet another opportunity to use our Rapid Rewards and Companion Pass benefits.
We appreciate how Southwest has shaped our family's choices and opportunities; because of Southwest, our sons were able to attend colleges they loved and we were able to visit them whenever we could. Southwest had such a great impact on our family’s college experience—in return, we will always be loyal Southwest Customers!
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