Southwest Outrageous Ticket Prices

[shrinkydinky]

My family has been planning a WDW vacation for March 18-25, 2016, which is during Spring Break, as we invited my husband's son and girlfriend, and they are in college. My sister, who belongs to DVC, is covering the accommodations, which are almost twice the points as normal, due to the timing. This morning Southwest opened the window on flights. i expected flight prices to go up a bit, but not like this! We are in California, and the rt price is usually between $450-$600. Well, the rt for our flights are going to be over $1,200 each. That would be almost $5k for me and my husband, plus his son and girlfriend. Then we have six other family members coming. No one can afford that. i'm so upset! My husband is going to contact his son today to see if we can change the flight dates. i hope the kids can do that, otherwise, there goes our vacation.

 

[Psychodisney]

Have you checked other carriers? That does sound pretty crazy!

 

[shrinkydinky]

We have, and other carriers appear to be just as pricey. We are flying in and out on a Friday. If we could switch to flying Tuesday or Wednesday in and out, it would be less than half price. It all depends on if my son-in-law and his girlfriend can do that.

 

[maxiesmom]

Do you have another airport you could fly out of for less?

 

[kaytieeldr]

What about Saturday to Saturday?

 

[mmouse50]

What about Saturday to Saturday?

Out of Houston dates from 3/10 until the end of the month - never drop Tuesday and Wednesday are just as high as the rest on the week - the prices are just outrageous - 658 rd trip? But everyone else is just as high. Usually I buy on the day that the window opens but not today - hopefully it will go down - I have 7 tickets to get

 

[maxiesmom]

Try booking a few at a time. Often airlines only have a few tickets left for the cheap price, and when you ask for more than what they have available, they boot you to the more expensive tickets.

 

[DisMom829]

Out of Houston dates from 3/10 until the end of the month - never drop Tuesday and Wednesday are just as high as the rest on the week - the prices are just outrageous - 658 rd trip? But everyone else is just as high. Usually I buy on the day that the window opens but not today - hopefully it will go down - I have 7 tickets to get

We normally fly out of Houston, live in SETX, it would be $1136 for the 4 of us. We're driving in November, again. Just made the drive in June. I can't stomach paying so much for flights. $2632 to go back in March 2016. I foresee us putting a lot of miles on my car.

 

[Lakegirl]

We are trying to fly out of Boston in April and are finding the same thug it's crazy!!!

 

[shrinkydinky]

With much haggling back and forth with everyone involved, we decided to change our dates. We are now going Tuesday, March 15-Wednesay, March 23, 2016. So instead of paying over $1,200 round trip for each person, our tickets came to less than $500 roundtrip for each person. Big difference. Now my sister just needs to call Disney tomorrow and shuffle the reservations. Fingers crossed.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I tried to get Southwest tickets for our 2016 Easter Break vacation this morning. I called night before and customer service told me the web is loaded at 8 a.m. central time (I live in California). Only to find out it happened much earlier than that and sold out. If we were to put via Southwest now, it would be over $3000 for 3 of us. It's $1000 cheaper on a legacy airliner. There have been many thread on the boards regarding Southwest since their new booking window opened today.

 

[Yellowjj]

Friday's and Sundays are the worst day's to travel pricing wise. As someone else mentioned, look at Saturday departures and look at multiple airports. Your in California, lots of choices to depart from in a metro area. Also search for one person and then work your way up to see at which point the higher fare bucket is activated.

On a side note, there are now maybe 8 airlines left, down from a field of maybe 15-20. No longer are there fare wars and cheap prices fighting for customers due to over capacity in the market. Days of cheap, cheap tickets are simply going the way of the dodo. Got to get use to it I suppose.

 

[TheDisneyDoll]

If you can also look into flying out thursday evening. Those flight can also be more reasonable price, and if you're willing even look into a red and just spend friday taking it easy and getting used to the time change. If the price is better that could be worth it good luck!

 

[kydisneyfans]

I saw the same thing yesterday. We flew for $224 RT from Louisville in April of 2013, our work convention is back at Disney in April of 2016 and the flights are $516 RT for the same exact dates. I looked at the calendar and it seems that every Thurs-Mon flight for all of March and April was high, then Tues-Wed was closer to reality. Since those are spring break weeks, it looks like they entered with artificially high prices hoping people bite. For me, I am waiting for the prices to drop or will look at the ultra low price airlines when they release prices. Driving is not off the books either.

 

[barbliny]

My family has been planning a WDW vacation for March 18-25, 2016, which is during Spring Break, as we invited my husband's son and girlfriend, and they are in college...Then we have six other family members coming. No one can afford that. i'm so upset! My husband is going to contact his son today to see if we can change the flight dates. i hope the kids can do that, otherwise, there goes our vacation.

If I am interpreting this correctly, and if you are all flying out of the same airport - you have 10 people, which in the airline industry is a group. You should be able to contact Southwest and get a group rate, which is usually substantially less than published airfares.

 

[GreatLakes]

Flying on a Friday or Saturday during peak travel times is always expensive. I fly on Tuesdays and Thursdays now whenever I can to avoid it. Since only two of the party are on spring break I would look into the other members flying down a day or two early to see if the cost of the flight goes down enough to justify the additional hotel cost and just stay at one of the inexpensive places on 192 for those nights.

It really comes down to supply and demand. If they aren't filling the plane the prices may come down. If they are filling the plane the prices seem to be correct.

 

[Darcy03231]

We used to fly Southwest exclusively as they always had the best prices. Now, the last couple of trips have been on other carriers. We don't fly during peak times (no kids in school anymore) and can be very flexible, but that hasn't helped. DH is in TN right now visiting family. Roundtrip on Southwest would have been almost $800 ($419 on the way down and $389 on the way back) from Manchester, NH. He ended up going on American out of Boston for $277 roundtrip for the same dates.

 

[shrinkydinky]

"If I am interpreting this correctly, and if you are all flying out of the same airport - you have 10 people, which in the airline industry is a group. You should be able to contact Southwest and get a group rate, which is usually substantially less than published airfares."

That is a great idea. But we have 3 people flying out of Sacramento, 2 out of San Francisco, 2 out of Southern California, then 1 flying Sac to Denver, picking up his 2 kids, then on to Orlando. We are very glad everyone could change their plans and fly out on the earlier Tuesday then back home the following Wednesday. Now we have more money to do fun things at DisneyWorld!

 

[wisblue]

Flying on a Friday or Saturday during peak travel times is always expensive. I fly on Tuesdays and Thursdays now whenever I can to avoid it. Since only two of the party are on spring break I would look into the other members flying down a day or two early to see if the cost of the flight goes down enough to justify the additional hotel cost and just stay at one of the inexpensive places on 192 for those nights.

It really comes down to supply and demand. If they aren't filling the plane the prices may come down. If they are filling the plane the prices seem to be correct.

I don't know about the other airports, but from Milwaukee, the extremely high fares (as in more than $100 more each way than they were last year) cover any outgoing flight from the Thursday before Good Friday through the Monday after Easter. For the return flights, they cover the Friday after Easter through the next Monday.

The district where my daughters teach has its spring break from Good Friday through the following weekend. That is a pretty common spring break around here. So, anyone who wants to fly nonstop from MKE to MCO for spring break without taking the kids out of school for a few days (which isn't an option for teachers anyway) either has to accept the 50-60% increase in fares from last year, or fly out on the Tuesday after Easter and return two days later. I should add that all of my fare searching is for one person, so I don't know if families would be stuck with an even higher fare.

Maybe the fare is "correct" if the market will bear it. But, you'll have a hard time convincing me that that dramatic increase isn't a result of the lack of competition. It isn't surprising to me that the Justice Department is investigating the airlines for collusion with regard to setting routes and fares.

 

[mmouse50]

I had to fly on the weekend for spring break (teacher and school age kids) - I ended up flying in and out of Jacksonville - there is only 1 nonstop from Houston - but flying out on Friday. Since I was renting a car anyway that expense wasn't a factor.