Question re: one-way Southwest purchase...

[WDW4us2006]

I am going Sept. 13-17. If the next release dates fall between those days (which seems likely when you look at the history), can/should I buy the trip down, and then wait for the next release to buy the return home? Are there any extra costs/ hidden charges, etc.? Has anyone done this? When I tried a "fake" trip on the website, it seemed like it would be OK.

Just wondering......

 

[alecam]

All Southwest flights are one-way trips. You just book two of them when you book a round-trip. It is perfectly OK to book one-way when it opens up and then another later. You will most likely have two confirmation numbers, but that is the only difference!!

HTH

 

[ryanally]

I had to do this last year. I called SW and spoke to one of the reps and was assured that this was not a problem and was the best way to get a good deal on the outgoing flight while waiting for the return flight to become available.

 

[WDW4us2006]

Awesome! Now I am not worried....

 

[Boundin]

I just did the very thing on Tuesday for our trip in June. I bought our tickets to OrlaNDO in late January and our return trip to San Antonio on Tuesday. For us it came out a little cheaper to do it that way at least it did when I bought our departing tickets but the price came down from 159 one way to 96. Boy was I happy we got both ways for 96!

Boundin

 

[mom2missmous]

Our return date was one day later than the released schedule. On the advice of a SW agent, I booked round trip returning one day ealier than I actually want to return with the intention of changing that flight to the next day when flights were released. In my case, she had recommened this because I wanted to use the new, lower internet only fare that was just released for my outbound flight. But I also wanted to end up with a round trip booking to avoid possible extra security flagging that I have heard about when you purchase just one way fares. Hopefully this will work as planned. (ps we saved $78 one way changing from special fares to internet only special- hopefully we can do as well with our real return flight!)

 

[Poorman]

I book one way all the time on purpose. I get the best rate I can for both legs and if the price goes down on one of them I rebook. If you book RT and one of the legs goes down, you are stuck with the whole trip, you cannot rebook 1/2 the trip at a lower rate. Good luck.