Southwest early boarding

Two questions.
1. Is SWA early bird boarding worth the $10 charge or do so many people take advantage of it that it does not matter? Early Bird Boarding seats can only assigned 36 hours prior to boarding even though you can purchase the early boarding at time of reservation?
2. Are the drink coupons still available and if so where do you purchase them?

I've heard arguments for both sides of this. As for myself, since we travel as a couple I've always paid the extra 10 bucks so we are pretty much guarenteed to get on the plane in the first group and be able to sit together. Not sure about the drink coupons as I have never had them. I have seen them for sale on ebay and have seen other posters offet to trade them for coupons.

Early Bird at $10 is well worth it. A1-15 is business class (full pay or lots of reward credits). Then, beginning with A16, before anyone has a chance to get a boarding pass online (24 hours before flight) your Early Bird is automatically generated. Most people do not take advantage of EB. It's a good thing, especially flying out of LV. You don't have to worry about finding a computer to snag a good boarding number. It's automatically done for you. $10 well spent.
Drink coupons can be purchased at the counter by the gate (at least, that's true at my airport). As you may know, SWA no longer accepts cash for drinks, but does accept credit or debit cards on the flight. Have fun!

free drink coupons are given when you have an award flight. as for the 10.00 early boarding fee i don't think so. i recently was on a flight from indy to providence with a stop in baltimore i paid the 10.00 charge and even though i had an A boarding pass there were so many passengers who were able to board in front of me either families with small children, disabled, and thats not counting passengers already on the plane who came from different destinations and were just stopping over to reload the plane. in fact on the baltimore-providence flight there were at least 20 children who were allowed to board with there parents in front of me. i ended up sitting in the middle of the plane. so i don't know if it is worth the extra 10.00 i guess you have to take your chances

Thanks for the information seems like it is $10 well spent in most cases. We used the Visa award tickets for signing up. Would this quality as a drink coupon eligible or does it have to be a ticket purchased with miles? Drink coupon is really not a big issue but would be nice.

Families with kids are suppose to board between A & B and they always have on my flights.
Always go with the Early Bird for my both of us. Never have to worry about going online at home or in LV. Highest number we have ever been is 31 and usually right around 20.
But then, all my flights for the last 4 years have been free (thanks to the SWA visa), so $25 is not much to pay for a flight. For the same reason I've never had to purchase drink coupons and I'll be given 10 away this next trip since they expire on Aug 31st.

Captian Bill
We will be in Las Vegas 9/20---9/27. On the Early Bird Check-in you are saying once you purchase them you are assigned a number or do not have to go online 36 hours prior and check-in and than receive the number. That's great if the number is assigned for Early Boarding at time of purchase them both ways and not during the check-in procedure. As long as it in the first 35/40 no problem.

Im traveling to Vegas next week with my girl. A 5 hour flight...and I dread fying in the middle seat with 2 people my size or bigger. Ditto for my girl!

$20.00 bucks bought me/us a piece of mind for this coming Friday!

Champster that is what we are looking at a 5 hour flight out of Pittsburgh. Now that you purchased the Early Boarding is there a number going to be assigned for your seats. For example say you check-in 22 hours ahead of time is the number already been assigned for your seats. I know they say you can check-in with early boarding 36 hours ahead of time but does it matter whether it is 22 hours or 36 hours on seat selection tha tthey have for you. Case in point I want to purchase Early Boarding for both outgoing and return flights now and on return will just check-in at the airport. Will this have an effect on the the boarding procedure or will still have an early boarding as if we have check-in 36 hours ahead of flight time. like you I would like no cneter seats two asile seats is usally how we travel. We usually book far enough in advance on other airlines than do not offer early boarding we can select our seats at time of reservation without any problem. this is only the second time we have flown SWA and prior to this did not have early borading available for passengers. Uusally we travel Delta (Gold) or USAIR with no problems.

It is not worth it if you paid a low price for your tickets. You are put behind others who paid more for their tickets. Last time My wife and I were b15 and 16 even though we purchased early boarding 6 months in advance. There were people in the A group who purchased early boarding 3 days before the flight. They apparently paid more for their tickets.