kristenrice
NOT just an ambulance driver
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 7,406
We are flying down in October with my sister's family. We will all be going together on the same flight but our family's are booking separately.
So here's the deal...I have enough RR points to cover (3) R/T tickets and (1) O/W ticket. This is based on the prices that were just released for the latest possible dates. I know it is only an estimate, but I have been watching the prices for quite a while and it looks like a good estimate is about 15,500 per R/T, 7,750 O/W.
I want to book the morning that the schedule opens up which will be March 3 according to the website. What will be my best strategy for my family of four??
Option 1: Book (3) R/T on points and (1) O/W on points and (1) O/W with cash....
Option 2: Book (7) O/W with points and wait to book the last leg.
Option 3: Something else I haven't considered
We will NOT be buying EBCI since we will be able to check in at the 24 hour mark. Our kids will be 11 and 9 and we don't care if we are together or not. We should not have a problem getting 2 sets of two seats together so I am not going to waste the money ($50 each way
)on EBCI.
With option #1, I have the knowledge that our flights are booked and we have tickets. I just don't know how the "refunds" work if the fare goes down on only one leg of a R/T if it goes up for the other. Does the TOTAL fare have to go down to get a credit if it is booked as a R/T?
With option #2, I was thinking that if any of the legs booked on points went down, I could apply the difference to purchasing the final O/W ticket. It would also give me time to accrue more points in my RR account. Obviously, I would be risking a fare increase, but the prices just have not been fluctuating that much. My other concern with option #2 is how does check in work? Would I have 4 different confirmation numbers for our flight down? I would assume so and therefore have to check in each one individually. This shouldn't be a huge problem since we have a desktop, laptop and two iPhones with the SWA app so we could do them all almost simultaneously.
So, all you SWA experts...what is my best strategy? If it matters, we are flying out of Grand Rapids on October 19 (Sunday).
On a related (no pun intended) note...what would be the best strategy for my sister? Her kids will be 6 and almost 3 (we have to squeeze in one more trip before she turns 3
). Would they qualify for family boarding? She is on a tight budget too and it seems like the EBCI would be wasted if they can board between A and B groups anyways. I think she is in the same points predicament...enough for 3 1/2 tickets.
On our return flight, we will probably use our phones to check in from the parks. This worked fine for DH and I on our trip last November. In fact, we actually got BETTER boarding position (A58,A59) on the way home than we did on the way down (B21, B23...not sure how someone squeaked in between us). Those two tickets were purchased at the same time and we still had different confirmation numbers. Is this normal? Sorry for all the questions. I do not feel like an expert in this area and my sister is really looking to me to make sure everything goes smoothly. I don't want to give her false information.
Thanks, DIS'ers
!
So here's the deal...I have enough RR points to cover (3) R/T tickets and (1) O/W ticket. This is based on the prices that were just released for the latest possible dates. I know it is only an estimate, but I have been watching the prices for quite a while and it looks like a good estimate is about 15,500 per R/T, 7,750 O/W.
I want to book the morning that the schedule opens up which will be March 3 according to the website. What will be my best strategy for my family of four??
Option 1: Book (3) R/T on points and (1) O/W on points and (1) O/W with cash....
Option 2: Book (7) O/W with points and wait to book the last leg.
Option 3: Something else I haven't considered
We will NOT be buying EBCI since we will be able to check in at the 24 hour mark. Our kids will be 11 and 9 and we don't care if we are together or not. We should not have a problem getting 2 sets of two seats together so I am not going to waste the money ($50 each way
)on EBCI. With option #1, I have the knowledge that our flights are booked and we have tickets. I just don't know how the "refunds" work if the fare goes down on only one leg of a R/T if it goes up for the other. Does the TOTAL fare have to go down to get a credit if it is booked as a R/T?
With option #2, I was thinking that if any of the legs booked on points went down, I could apply the difference to purchasing the final O/W ticket. It would also give me time to accrue more points in my RR account. Obviously, I would be risking a fare increase, but the prices just have not been fluctuating that much. My other concern with option #2 is how does check in work? Would I have 4 different confirmation numbers for our flight down? I would assume so and therefore have to check in each one individually. This shouldn't be a huge problem since we have a desktop, laptop and two iPhones with the SWA app so we could do them all almost simultaneously.
So, all you SWA experts...what is my best strategy? If it matters, we are flying out of Grand Rapids on October 19 (Sunday).
On a related (no pun intended) note...what would be the best strategy for my sister? Her kids will be 6 and almost 3 (we have to squeeze in one more trip before she turns 3
). Would they qualify for family boarding? She is on a tight budget too and it seems like the EBCI would be wasted if they can board between A and B groups anyways. I think she is in the same points predicament...enough for 3 1/2 tickets. On our return flight, we will probably use our phones to check in from the parks. This worked fine for DH and I on our trip last November. In fact, we actually got BETTER boarding position (A58,A59) on the way home than we did on the way down (B21, B23...not sure how someone squeaked in between us). Those two tickets were purchased at the same time and we still had different confirmation numbers. Is this normal? Sorry for all the questions. I do not feel like an expert in this area and my sister is really looking to me to make sure everything goes smoothly. I don't want to give her false information.
Thanks, DIS'ers
!
