LONDON – The U.S.-based low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines has announced a new fare type named Wanna Get Away Plus which may prove to be a great benefit for its passengers.

What is ‘Wanna Get Away Plus’

This new option will give passengers on Southwest four fare types with the other three being Wanna Get Away, Anytime and Business Select.

The new Wanna Get Away Plus fare will not come into play with Southwest until the second quarter of 2022.

It will sit between their already existing Wanna Get Away and Anytime fares, which bridges quite a large price cap, a benefit to passengers who want more from their flight but do not pay quite as much for the Anytime fare option.

It is expected that the new Wanna Get Away Plus option will be a minor price increase compared to Southwest’s existing Wanna Get Away fare, which means it may be more likely that we see most passengers opt for this new fare choice when traveling with Southwest.

Wanna Get Away Plus will alongside the two free checked bags and no fees to change or cancel flights that all Southwest fares offer, it will also include the following three additional perks compared to that standard Wanna Get Away fare –

• Transferable flight credits, allowing passengers to make a one-time transfer of eligible unused flight credits to a new traveler for future use.
• With more Rapid Reward points, passengers will now see 8x point per dollar spent compared to the 6x from Wanna Get Away and 10x from Anytime fares.
• Same-day confirmed flight changes and same-day flight standby.

Not only will there be the introduction of Wanna Get Away Plus for Southwest, but Anytime and Business Select fares are also getting some additional benefits. These are as follows:

• Anytime fares will also allow credits to be transferred to other Rapid Rewards members as well as access to priority and express lanes and an automatic EarlyBird check-in.
• Business Select fares will also allow credits to be transferred to other Rapid Rewards members.

Interesting Moves Ahead…

It will be interesting to see how Southwest’s passenger numbers vary with the addition of the new fare option as it appears as though they are trying to set themselves apart from other U.S. low-cost carriers but without stretching into the ultra-low-cost carrier territory, where airlines such as Spirit, Frontier, and new carrier Avelo lay or even venturing into the more premium territory where the mainline U.S carriers sit, such as Delta, United and the flag carrier American.

Southwest has found its own place in the U.S. domestic market and in recent years has been booming off the success it has achieved with high passenger levels and rapid expansion of both its flight services and fleet numbers.

At present Southwest operated an all-Boeing 737 fleet of currently over 700 aircraft, a mixture of Boeing 737-700 and 737-800 NG’s (Next Generation) aircraft and Boeing 737 MAX 8’s. The airline still has many MAX 8’s on order as well as the MAX 7.