February Dings?

[Fonzy13]

Trying to decide whether I should book Airtran out of Newburgh, which has average flight times, and a price of $325 R/T for two, or if I should wait for Southwest to release some Dings for Feb 3-10 out of Albany. Albany is 10 minutes away, Newburgh about an hour and a half.

Anyone venture a guess as to when Southwest will open up Dings for February?

 

[debster812]

What about JetBlue out of Newburgh? I just checked them, and they appear to have some decent prices?

There are 2 non-stops a day from Newburgh to Orlando. For your dates the prices are $119, and $79 each way.

I would pick JetBlue in a HEARTBEAT over SWA or Airtran.

 

[alyssa810]

Waiting for dings can always be a risk, but since that's not really vacation time yet, you might luck out. I don't know what JetBlue's cancellation policy is, but I know SW's very well, so I might be tempted to just book SW so you have something (if the prices are better than JetBlue) and just rebook if there's a ding. We're in a spot where Boston is closer but Providence isn't much further so we'll go from Providence because the SW flights have been unbeatable. We've even flown on SW from Manchester, NH because once you factor in the cheaper parking and cheaper flight, it's still less expensive than Boston.

 

[DVC Grammy]

Our choice is also to book SWA and wait for Dings. But then again, we do that because we know we'll be flying a few times a year to some SWA destination, so we're okay with having those credits almost as a "slush fund" for future travel.
Another reason we like SWA is that from RDU to MCO, they use decent-sized airplanes; the only other non-stop airline would be a Delta connector, and after our last trip in a teeny, weeny plane, plus having to board and disembark on the tarmac, we'll never do it again!
If you have multiple airlines that are just as convenient for you, SWA may not be the obvious best pick, even with their wonderful cancellation policy.
For us, it's the only way to go.

 

[debaudrn]

Just remember if you are going to book SW and then wait for a DING to re-book that you should book each leg of the trip as a one way ticket. That way if a DING only appears for 1/2 of your trip you can at least get a lower price on that segment without losing your entire reservation.
Deb