That's something only you can decide. It's worth it to me, but I am an adult traveling without small children. I always check in at 24 hrs and usually have a B seat and there are plenty of empty rows when I board. Now if your flight is one which already has passengers on it from an earlier leg, could be tougher. I book the first flight of the day out of my airport, so it is empty.
You have already paid, your credit card has been charged. You could cancel and rebook, but unless you booked a refundable fare you will just get a credit for future use so not much different from your LUV voucher. There may be a refund if cancelling within 24 hours of booking? Not sure.
IMO I would change my flight to any earlier time. Christmas party tickets are too expensive! It’s risky that you will even get to the party by 8:30, depending on transportation. There are so many moving parts that out of your control.
I would go the day before, or first flight out in the morning. No way am I planning anything I really care about doing or that is really expensive on arrival or departure day with airline travel the way it is right now. I've got the first flight out for my October trip the day before I actually need to be there for anything.
I ended up taking the advice of both of you. I really started worrying about missing half of the party on Friday night, but I just couldn’t see getting up at 3 AM for a 6 AM flight on Friday morning either since the thought made me feel physically ill, so we decided to book the 9:30 flight the night before. We will land at 12:50 AM on Friday morning and we decided to book the night at the hotel at the airport. It will be so nice since we will have the full day ahead of us. We will check out of the hotel mid-morning on Friday and head to Disney Springs for Everglazed and maybe check out some of the Christmas decorations at a couple of resorts. Hopefully our room at VGF will be ready sometime that afternoon, but if not, we will just leave our carry-on bags with bell services and head to MK using our party tickets at 4 pm. Thanks for the advice!
I don’t think JAN is a big airport or would be crowded on flights, but we’ve never flown from there before either so who knows.
Right ! I sure wish we could, but we have limited time off on this trip. We just took a sat-sat trip at the end of April so our bosses are already not happy we are going back so soon. At both our jobs, there’s no one to cover for us when we are gone so it potentially puts them in a bind, but I don’t get bothered too much about it because family time is important to us and we always work ahead as much as possible when we will be out. Thanks for the suggestion though.
I wouldn't worry about making your flight, you'll be fine with that. Short flights are padded beyond belief, more than likely you'll be early on a morning flight. Try and book your JAN-ATL flight with 8 people and see if BS is still available, if it is there are plenty of seats left. I've made it on 40 minutes connections with plenty of time at MSP and ORD, as long as the baby is ready when it's time to get off you'll make it fine. SW gates aren't that far apart at ATL, they just don't take up too many gates. Remember two adults can board with the two year old after the A group.I’m wondering if anyone knows the answer to this. Sorry, I’m going to be long winded …. Here’s a little backstory…Heading from JAN (Jackson, MS) to MCO in 3 weeks. It’ll be me, my husband, 16 yo, 18 yo and 2 yo grandbaby. We first purchased a 1:10 pm flight with a 3 hour ATL layover and then lands at MCO at 8:05 pm. Well the more I thought about it, I decided we needed to take an earlier flight so I just switched us to a 7:30 am with a 40 min ATL layover that lands at MCO at 11:55 am. Here’s my dilemma.. now I think I must be crazy for changing it because that 40 min layover has me worried because we’ve never flown or stepped foot in ATL before so I’m not sure how the layout is or how far apart the SWA terminals are, plus we will have a 2 year old. We did buy EBCI when we originally booked in July, but obviously we are not sure of what our position will be yet. And seeing how if we aren’t really close to the front of the plane, it could take forever to get off it having to wait on all the people in front of us to get off. So basically IF the flight is actually on time and there are no delays (which I’m not very hopeful about) on the first part, we have about 10 minutes to get in line for the second part of the flight if we are in the A boarding group since it boards 30 min early. Is there anyone that has experience with this short of a layover lately or thinks this is doable as is or is it too risky? If I were more confident that the plane wouldn’t leave us stranded in ATL if we did have any kind of delay, i wouldn’t worry about a thing, but unfortunately last year we almost got left at MDW on the very last flight out that night due to our first flight being delayed, but not the second flight. We were running as fast as we could, my daughter was crying, and they were about to shut the door on us when we came through screaming like crazy people at the attendant to let us on - we barely made it. We do not want to ever go through that again if we can help it. My poor daughter was traumatized and then she had to sit by herself with strangers, which freaked her out. I wish they’d bring back daily direct flights again!
Now, I’m also contemplating upgrading to business select tickets so we are guaranteed A1-A15 boarding so we know we will be able to sit close to the front and get off quickly, but that comes at a $600 cost for the 5 of us, assuming we also have to buy it for the 2 year old to board with us? What I mean is, if the 4 adults have business select, but not the 2 year old, would he be able to board with all of us or would someone have to stay back in the line to wherever his boarding position is? We are so new to flying with an infant, we don’t know all the rules. Is it worth that and if we did upgrade, would we be able to be refunded for the EBCI that we already purchased since we would no longer need it ? I know you can upgrade to A1-A15 at the gate for less money, if available, but that’s not a guarantee either until you are there. Is there a way to know how full the flight actually is besides just watching the prices ? I’d hate to wait too long to upgrade to business select and the prices be even higher than now. It’s all such a gamble and I’m just not a gambler!
I appreciate any words of wisdom and advice on what would be our best option.
I agree - and good point about family boarding for part of the group.
Thank you for the info. I checked and there are still 8 BS available. We will have the baby ready to go as soon as that plane lands!
That's a relief and I am glad to know that the gates are close to each other. We have only ever flown Southwest and have never had an issue, except that one time last year at MDW, but since then I worry about connecting flights with shorter layovers. I guess in reality if we are in a super bad time crunch, as long as one of us can run ahead and make it to the connecting gate, they will wait for the rest of us before they close the door.
