Travel Deal of the Day (September 2, 2009)

You can now pay to be one of the first few passengers to board a Southwest flight. Passengers on Southwest obtain boarding passes up to 24 hours in advance of departure. A few groups of passengers, the airline's most frequent flyers, passengers paying a very select group of high "business" fares and/or connecting passengers (when applicable), currently obtain the first boarding passes, and then all other passengers are accomodated based on how early they check-in at the Southwest website. Southwest will now offer passengers the ability to purchase priority boarding - for $10/way, you can obtain the next boarding passes (after the previously mentioned groups) regardless of when you check-in at Southwest's website. For more information, see this post on the Southwest Blog.