Southwest Airlines is different from many other airlines in a couple of interesting ways. First of all, there are no assigned seats. When you board the plane, you just pick whatever seat you want and sit down in it. This generally works out fine, but sometimes there are conflicts with people trying to save seats
(READ MORE: Can you save seats on Southwest Airlines?)
So with that said, how the boarding order is determined on Southwest depends on when you check-in. Check-in opens for most people 24 hours before your flight, though you can pay extra for Southwest Early Bird check-in. As you check in, you get a boarding order in one of 3 groups (A, B or C) and a number from 1 to 60 in each of the groups. So, unlike other airlines, it matters WHEN you check in!
In fact, one of the Southwest boarding tips I give for families flying Southwest is to make sure to check in as close to 24 hours before your flight as possible.
Checking in as soon as possible
Unfortunately it’s not always possible to check in right at the 24 hour mark. You may be traveling, asleep or somewhere else without easy Internet access. It’s also tricky if you have multiple reservations as you’ll have different record locators and have to check in multiple times. I remember a time when we were driving to Chicago and pulled over at a McDonalds near Indianapolis in order to use their wifi to check in our family of 8.
So recently I found this script to do an automated Southwest check-in right at the 24 hour mark. You can find the script here on Github, but you’ll need something like Greasemonkey or Tamper Monkey to use it.
Reviewing some of the comments, it looks like it recently was updated because of a change in Southwest’s check-in web page. I was curious to know if anyone had used it before. If it’s useful, I’ll do a full writeup on it to explain it to less technical people but wanted to see if others had used it before I did.
Have you used this (or any other) script to automatically check in to Southwest flights? Leave your experience in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Southwest shuts these things down once they find out about them and then another will pop up. I have never used it, but I am sure attention to the masses will result in that script not working anymore.
or do the civilized thing of flying airlines that actually have pre-assigned seats instead of this stupid T-24 mad dash every single time
passengers should check-in when THEY want and board the plane when THEY want, not the archaic way southwest does business.
Southwest check in actually works very well for most people. If you don’t like it, buy early bird for $15 and you’ll still save with free bags.
I’ve used it a couple of times and it worked very well. Unfortunately, for my trip two weeks ago, Southwest had changed the check-in page format (presumably to foil this type of script?) and the old script wouldn’t load or run correctly. I had to revert back to manual check-in. The couple of times I did use it, I was in the A18-A25 range.
Yes – I use it all the time and even wrote a step by step guide for the less techie crowd (https://www.theartoftravelhacking.com/automatic-check-southwest-flights/) someone recently commented that it stopped working. I’m going to buy a refundable ticket and try it out this week.
TJ – glad to see you commenting in. I actually saw your site when I googled around for it.
fascinating…. if disconcerting “sore subject.” This may help ‘splain the increasing sense of being beaten by computers even when trying to sign on to something the second it becomes available. I went for a year w/o a SWA companion pass in the family, in part because of the growing frustration at being treated like cattle in the SWA boarding system…. (nothing quite like trying hard to get your boarding pass 24 hours in advance — only to get stuck in group boarding C — and then a middle seat — and separate from your family…. even though you attempted to check in exactly 24 hours in advance…. serious problem on popular SWA routes)
Alas, I’m going for the SWA pass yet again next year….. after fighting for a year to find award availability on AA…. (or getting knee-capped flying on Frontier — ya know, the airline that charges you for the air you breathe)
So yes, I’ll be back doing SWA cattle cars next year… SWA has so much to “LUV” about it — the baggage and easy change policies, etc.
But this madness on boarding — and now learning that we’re up against computer “scripts”….. nope, not happy about that one bit.
Now that I know I’m up against computer programs…… (grrrrr…..) I’ll be watching for ways to get A-list boarding…..
@escot – even the script doesn’t always help, I still get mostly mid-Bs with script.
My problem is I fly from BWI (major hub) – so after everyone who bought early bird, the next group ahead of me is everyone connecting into BWI since they get to check in 24 hours before their first flight to BWI.