air tran opinions vs southwest

[pickles]

I love southwest have flown it several times now. I usually can get round trio fare around $130-$150 I didnt snag it when the price was lower and now its running $200 round trip. My trip is end of april

airtran has some fares in the $138 ish range round trip

my worry is..they charge for bags, rebooking issues, and I heard they arent as reliable..change flights and times etc..

anyone have opinions?
what are the odds SWA will drop back down some?

 

[michelle1]

My only experience with AirTran is that they change the flight times...we had a non-stop that got changed to a flight with stops and everyone I know that has flown with them has had some sort of flight change. If the price difference between SW and AT wasn't significant then I would stick with SW but if going with AT means saving a huge amount of $ then it would be worth flying AT. Once you are on the plane they are essentially the same...no frills, basic flights.

 

[chefmb]

I have flown Southwest for four of our five trips. I like Southwest. The one time I took Airtran, they did change our flights. I had to call and change because they rebooked us on a really early flight when we specifically booked a later morning flight. We also paid the extra $ (I think it was $10 per seat) to reserve a specific seat ahead of time, and had to ask someone to move out of our seats when we got on the plane. Now that Airtran charges per bag, it made Southwest's higher fare comparable. I just booked last week for our June trip.

BTW---Keep checking Southwest's site. I had been looking pretty regularly--almost ready to book Airtran, when Southwest had some lower rates. They are back up again now, but just keep checking. I got lucky on a Saturday with lower fares--don't know if that's typical or not. They seemed to be back up by Tuesday.