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> Priority boarding: Why...?

Getting carry on room is the only reason this makes sense

Though that's a pretty good reason. I do have an airline card that is decent otherwise and gives me good enough boarding priority. I don't bring on a large carryon but I almost never check luggage so it's nice to have overhead bin space.

I guess. I usually have a small enough one that I can squeeze under the seat. Even when I've had larger items that need to go overhead, the majority of the times it's within one row of where I'm sitting. The ones where I have to put it far away are the exception.

The problem is is the narrow-body "commuter" aircraft, which often only have enough overhead space for about 3/4 of all seats. Since most people have a carryon that needs overhead space, they often run out, and need to gatecheck your carry on.

The issue is that people don't like this, since it means more of a delay at the destination.

Also some airlines will through gate-check the bag, printing a full barcoded tag tied to your ticket, like all other checked begs. Other airlines, most notably American's regional carriers will instead "valet check" the bag, which means a little red tag is added that is not tied to you in any way, and at the destination they are supposed to separate out those bags, and hand them back on the jetbridge.

This means you will miss any connection that does not exceed the minimum connection time at the airport by a solid 10 minutes. Even worse is what happens if the baggage handler fails to notice the red tag. Then one of 3 things will happen:

1. It will get spit out at baggage claim. (I've had this happen once, albeit on a flight with no possible conections, so the bags skipped the sorting step and went straight to baggage claim.)

2. The bag reaches bag sorting, and because it does not have a proper checked tag with barcode will eventually get spit out for manual processing. An airport employee notices the red "American valet checked" tag, and delivers it to the American baggage office, where you can try to reclaim it with the little stub that you hopefully remembered to remove from the tag.

3. The little red tag got ripped off at some point in the process. If this happens you probably won't get your bag back. If the employee who checks unclaimed bags for identification actually does their job, you might get it back (assuming you have filled out the address card on your luggage), but sadly in practice that almost seems to the the exception instead of the rule.

I wish they enforced no small backpacks on the overhead.

Not a bad set of guidelines, but I think a bit more nuance is worthwhile.

If you only care about price, Southwest isn't a bad choice. But the cost may be in significantly increased travel time. E.g. if you live in the PNW, start with Alaska first, then try Southwest, because Alaska will probably have better direct flight options.

And seat selection... don't bother with it is fine if you're traveling alone. But if you're going on a family trip, this kind of detail is actually important.

Otherwise generally agree. Definitely bring your own food.

Also, if you do fly Alaska, always take your luggage as a carry-on if is plausible. Don't pay up front, because at the gate they'll offer to check it at no charge when the flight is pretty full.

> And seat selection... don't bother with it is fine if you're traveling alone. But if you're going on a family trip, this kind of detail is actually important.

IIRC, Southwest boards families early enough that they can get seats together, so it's another seat win for them.

> Definitely bring your own food.

And make sure it's smelly, messy, and impossible to dispose of, because if history is any guide you'll get to sit really near me.

> When searching for flights, ensure Spirit Airlines is excluded.

I don't exclude them initially, but unless the price difference is massive enough to account for the expected huge luggage fee and then some, I ignore them (or if they have so many flights that they're cluttering the results, then proceed to exclude them from that search).

> Priority boarding: Why...? I'd rather sit in the airport than in a cramped seat in the plane.

Amen. If at all possible, I'd rather be the last person on the plane, especially if I was guaranteed to not have to check a carry-on (or just don't have one).

>Insurance: Go to https://www.insuremytrip.com/ and get it yourself. Ignore whatever airlines offer you.

or get it free through your credit card. Many premium cards offer it as a free benefit.

Good to know. Apparently my one, which is a travel related CC with annual fee, doesn't provide this benefit.

If yours does, I would still read the fine print and compare with ones on insuremytrip. I picked a random CC and read its benefits, and did not see one involving serious illness - only death, accidents, and things like flight delays.

Edit: Checked again: Apparently mine does provide travel insurance. But as expected, not for serious illness (e.g. stroke that requires medical evacuation - happened to someone I know during travel). Also, it only covers issues related to the mode of travel. So if you're in the Bahamas for 2 weeks, and you get into accident a week in, that is excluded. With insuremytrip plans, the whole duration of stay is covered.

Medical evacuation (unrelated to method of travel) is specifically one of the benefits of an Amex Platinum card, as long as you’re more than 100 miles from your address. Maybe worth $700/year, maybe not.

See: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-ben...

If you travel a lot every year, I can see it being more affordable than buying insurance each time. Typically when I buy travel insurance it's $50-200 per trip.

Too lazy to look up whether Amex provides for problems during the trip (beyond evacuation), as opposed to merely during travel.

You have to not care about price at all these days to fly Southwest. It's gotten to the point where even if you have a companion pass, and the tickets are essentially buy-one-get-one free, it's still not worth flying them

Must be something specific to your airport/city? Still one of the cheaper ones for me.