Too Bad, Southwest.

The good news is Southwest Airlines will be flying into Atlanta in 2012. In 2011 they added Greenville, South Carolina as one of their cities. That's a big deal to The Travel Department at Great Plotnik World Headquarters because now the entire family is hooked up via Southwest, which -- well, used to be the low-priced alternative.

No longer, and that's the bad news. After they revamped their Frequent Flier program, it now takes twice as long to earn a ticket, making the program basically worthless. Virgin and Jet Blue are far better long distance alternatives than Southwest now, with newer planes, better service and flights directly into JFK and DC and Boston. And you can get good deals on Delta into Atlanta.

Southwest still has by far the best service, customer service and attitude but it also has the most uncomfortable planes for long distance service -- those cramped 737 seats are sat out low riders now. The Plotniks used to choose Southwest out of habit, but even to go down to Stiletto City they've been using Virgin from time to time, because you save around $100 roundtrip by flying into LAX instead of to Burbank. True, this means a bus and a subway to the nearest Mummy P. pickup point, but since the train costs 25 cents for seniors, it costs out successfully.

In the old days every flight you took earned you double credit redeemable on any SW flight. Eight one-ways meant a free ticket to Providence. But now if you take the cheapest flight available, which you always do unless you're loony, you only earn half a credit. Double credits are history. They killed the advantage of using their own program for anyone but business travelers whose companies are paying for their fares.

And so: we stray. Sorry, Southwest, we still like you, but not as much as we used to. You're nice folks and that goes a long way. But more expensive flights, a worthless frequent flier program and uncomfortable planes with stewardesses making you think you've gotten captured by Bad Comedy Traffic School? This can't help you in the end, can it?