How do I rebook my Ding! flight when a better Ding! becomes available?

[ClanHarrison]

On 3/28 I got a Ding for our 8/19/05 departing flight for $74. Because the travel dates were only thru 8/24 I could not purchase our return flight. I figured I’d better get the departing tickets at this rate in case that’s the lowest they go. Great. I was happy. One less thing to worry about.

On 4/5 I got a Ding which covered the departing and return flights (travel was thru 8/30 and we return 8/26/05) at a rate of $64. Great. Even better. But when I “tested” the new purchase as a round trip, our departing flight priced out as $74 and the return flight was $64.

Has anyone experienced this problem? If so, how do you rebook to get the lower rate? I called SW and they couldn’t figure it out either. I was told that, evidently, the rate isn’t available for my departing flight. How can this be if the travel dates were something like 6/13/05-8/30/05?

I realize that I will have to cancel my original tickets to get the credit so it can be applied to the new booking, which worries me. I need 8 tickets. What if all 8 are not available when I rebook it? Can a SW employee do this transaction for me and be able to see if all 8 tickets are still available for the new, lower priced booking?

Someone, please help. I need to know this in case one of those $49 or $59 fares becomes available closer to our trip date. Thanks guys!

 

[Rpsemont]

I was told that, evidently, the rate isn’t available for my departing flight. How can this be if the travel dates were something like 6/13/05-8/30/05?

Just because that date range is covered does not mean that every flight on the day has availability for the ding rate (especially for 8 tickets). Just the same as when the $49 specials come out, sometimes the flight you may want is not availabe. It you wanted to check it, you could "look" at it by doing an original booking and seeing what fares are available for your flight times.

I've seen special rates come out before and when I look at the rate for 1 person the availability is different that when I try to change them for the 4 of us.

 

[Rpsemont]

I realize that I will have to cancel my original tickets to get the credit so it can be applied to the new booking, which worries me. I need 8 tickets. What if all 8 are not available when I rebook it? Can a SW employee do this transaction for me and be able to see if all 8 tickets are still available for the new, lower priced booking?

With 8 tickets, I would not cancel and rebook. There is an option under travel service to Change your reservation. Work through that. When you get to the screen askeing what flight you want to change, check both for your tickets. It will take you to a screen showing availability at the new rates - if it's available. If the lower fare did not show availability for 8 tickets, then don't make the change.
In that case I would start all over again checking availability as is a new reservation. If you could do a new reservation for 8 at the lower rates then you may want to open two windows on your browser to cancel and rebook - I think more likely though, is that you would find that maybe there's a number , somewhere between 1-7 that you could get the lower rate for. If that was the case, I would call SWA about splitting the reservation and getting the lower rate for as many as you could.

 

[ClanHarrison]

Thank you Rpsemont. What you said makes sense, but with my luck...it probably won't turn out good for me . I think I'd better be satisfied with the $146.50/pp round trip price I got. So far, everything is going smoothly with my planning and I don't what to screw it up with our airline tixs.

I think I might be getting a little greedy because of all the wonderful tips & tricks I've learned from all of you guys. I just gotta learn that I can't have everything at it's rock bottom price .

You guys have taught me so much & saved me so much money!