How Southwest broke my heart

Alas, the honeymoon period is over. To be fair, it lasted longer than most.

Many of you know Southwest as the airline that "herds cattle." Why? Well, Southwest doesn't assign seats. Instead, you get a letter and a number. A/B/C 1-60. A1 is awesome land and C60 is the worst possible thing ever. I shudder to think of the poor sap with a C60.

The elusive A pass. Specifically A1-A30, but A31-60 isn't awful either. It's the stuff dreams are made of. Your pick of the plane and plenty of room for that carry on roller bag - you know the one - it's way too big but you're bringing it on anyways!

The way you get a "good" pass is by checking in precisely 24 hours before your flight. 24 hrs and 10 minutes - screwed! It's a crazy neurotic game and people have even written computer code to check them in automatically.

I fly Southwest quite a bit for work. As a result, I have achieved "Rapid Rewards A-List Membership." It's the equivalent of Gold status or Platinum status or whatever else you want to call it. I THOUGHT it meant that I got an A-Pass as long as I checked in well enough before the flight (12-24hrs).

HA! I check in for my 2:30 flight at 6PM and got a B29. WTF?! I thought my world had come crashing down. I'm not B list! Since I was on travel and had nothing better to do with my time, I called Southwest to see what was going on.

Here's how the conversation went:

SW: Hello.....welcome to SW.....how may I help you....you know the drill.

B: Hi, I have A-List status and I just checked in for my flight and got B29.

SW: Hmm, that's strange, you should have gotten an A. Let me look into that. Can I have your confirmation code?

B: Thanks. Here it is XXXXX

SW: Yes, it looks like you got B29.

B: Yes. But I thought I should get an A.

SW: Maybe next time you should check in earlier.

B: But I thought A-List meant I got an A pass as long as I checked in at a reasonable time before my flight.

SW:

SW: It says "Most likely an A"

B: Well, that's a little unclear.

SW: Can I help you with anything else?

B: No.

SW: Thanks and have a nice day.

So I got B29. Did I mention my flight to ABQ was delayed 2.5 hrs and my flight coming home was delayed 1.5hrs? I did I mention that I have 3 roundtrip vouchers that we can't seem to use because all the dates are blocked?

Don't get me wrong SW has an excellent cancellation policy and almost everything seems to fly for free (except pets). But I'm through the honeymoon stage, and have moved on to the "flaws" stage. Hopefully soon we (SW and I) will work out our differences and become a more harmonious pair. But for now, I'm peeved.