Mike Morin

Despite complimentary bags of nuts that contain about 17 peanuts (I counted once), and cancelling 15,700 flights a month ago (I counted those, too), I’m holding on to my Southwest Airlines tickets to Florida next month. After seriously considering a divorce from my favorite air carrier of 35 years, I’m giving SWA a chance to get Lady Baba and me to warm southern breezes.

On time. On the same day. With bags on the same flight.

Am I asking too much? I’ll let you know.

Since we use a Southwest Visa card for all our bills, we usually fly free or close to it, making me feel guilty for complaining about the scant peanuts per bag.

Yes, we have had a couple inconvenient cancelled flights (stuck in Baltimore overnight last April), but we have short memories and keep giving them more chances. Jet Blue is standing by for our next Florida getaway with a generous credit card sign-on bonus.

One more oopsy by SWA and we will be gone.

The next Southwest problem was MY fault. While ordering our upcoming tickets to Ft. Myers, I accidentally substituted a “J” for “K” in Barb’s last name. TSA might not let Lady Baba on the plane if her driver’s license doesn’t match her boarding pass.

Cut me some slack. J and K are side-by-side on the keyboard. Still, it was my bad. Trouble is, you can’t fix it online. You have to call Southwest. With roughly a million people calling to get their hotels comped from the holiday debacle, I didn’t stand a chance of getting a phone agent until next Christmas.

I decided to do what never fails when dealing with big organization issues. I do face-to-face visits. I grabbed Barbie’s driver’s license and walked into Manchester-Boston Regional Airport and requested the change with a Southwest ticketing agent.

It was my lucky day. Not a soul waiting to check bags and in five minutes, my typo was corrected.

Another in-person fix happened with xfinity. On the day cable techs were scheduled to visit our new home, the driver couldn’t locate our address (it wasn’t on GPS yet).

As soon as I realized we’d have no Internet for at least another day, I drove to the Xfinity store in Nashua on the DW Highway.

After calmly explaining the mess up, I requested the customer service rep call whatever backchannel number and please fix it while I was there. I had no intention of leaving.

He came through and I was able to watch Yellowstone that night. Boom!

Third example of face-time success. I couldn’t use my Bank of America Visa card because my new address did not match the old one. I was told I could not change it online. I drove to the BOA branch on the DW and within minutes, the red tape was fixed.

The takeaway: Find a live person and be kind but confident. I’ll give you a bag of Southwest peanuts if it doesn’t work for you.

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