Here's a fun "problem". What can I do with 4 ppl and a $500 Southwest credit?

[coastgirl]

Our March vacation ended with a change in plans that resulted in me having a SW balance of a little over $500. Here are the "rules" for spending it:

• We are in Halifax and usually fly out of Manchester NH, though we could fly from Portland Me or Boston. On our slim budget, we're probably confined to shorter flights in the north-east (ish--maybe if we're lucky we can stretch to north-central or a little more south-east).

• The credit has to be used by early November, which means a summer trip. We aren't taking the kids out of school this fall for a trip--both are switching schools (one middle school to hs, one elementary to ms) and it's a big year.

• It has to be a short trip because we aren't taking more than a week total this summer and we have to drive to Me or NH before we can get on a plane.

• We were thinking we'd do a late summer trip to Me to do back to school shopping...so maybe could roll that in at the destination.

• I'd put another $100 or so into tickets, but not much more than that, as the whole point is to use up the credit, not run up the credit card!

• Or~gasp~ maybe we could leave the kids with rellies in NB for a few days and see how far $550 gets two of us instead of 4 of us. That sounds lovely but is unlikely...dh has autism and we've never, ever left them in the care of relatives before. But maybe we could find a way to make that work.

Any ideas?

Note totally hooped ticker, I haven't bothered to fix it yet.

 

[coastgirl]

Answering my question again...we could fly to Baltimore in August for an extra $200. We have some interest in going to DC...

Oh, and it looks like the travel funds are pp, so we couldn't spend the kids' balances for them, we'd have to take them with us. Dang. ;-) (But honestly probably couldn't have done otherwise anyway.)

 

[kamik86]

Answering my question again...we could fly to Baltimore in August for an extra $200. We have some interest in going to DC...

Oh, and it looks like the travel funds are pp, so we couldn't spend the kids' balances for them, we'd have to take them with us. Dang. ;-) (But honestly probably couldn't have done otherwise anyway.)

That was going to be my first point... who are the credits assigned to. Because if its all on one person you can't use it for all 4 of you. If its split between the 4 you can't do it with just two.

So I'm going to assume this is $125 per person credit.

Searching flexible fares I found $70 each way or 140 round trip tickets Boston to BWI. So that is only $60 extra you would have to spend.

If you rent a car at BWI then going to DC is easy, its an hour drive down the beltway. I fly into BWI when I have to go to DC for work.