Questions re: Southwest and August 2007

[kldmom2000]

I know the fares won't be out for quite some time, but historically speaking, does Southwest tend to run any specials the last week or two of August? I wasn't sure if it was considered peak time (going from Providence, RI-MCO and vice versa)

Also, if you buy your tix as soon as they post the fares and then a few weeks later they run a promo, are you able to get the difference or are you just out of luck because you jumped too quickly????

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[gw_lit]

Southwest runs "specials" pretty frequently, however, it's pretty much impossible to determine at what times and for what city pairs. Southwest has gotten much more aggressive with their yield management, that is only offering deep discounts when they know seats aren't filling up (thus Ding!)

One of the great things about Southwest is that if you book and then your flight prices go down, you can re-book and receive a credit for that amount, and there's no change fee like there is on most other airlines.

 

[cepmom]

like the pp said, you enver know what they will offer next summer, but I'll let you know my experience this past August. I bought our tickets the day they were released ~ I was paranoid that the price was going to keep rising due to gas prices. I paid over $500 for two rt tickets PVD - MCO 8/31 - 9/3 (returning on Sunday of Labor Day weekend). Several weeks later the price went down and I was able to get that difference refunded to my cc. The only way you are able to get the difference refunded is if the same fare category is lowered and you don't change anything else about your itinerary. For example...I purchased the "internet one way" fare for $xxx. A few weeks later the "internet one way" fare was cheaper. So I made the changes online, keeping the same flight. days etc and then called the customer relations number for the refund. It was very easy. I did this two different times because the price kept decreasing. You need to call the (214) number, not the (800) number in order to get the refund.

As time went on, I was able to get several lower Ding fares, in which I was not able to get a refund because the fare category was different (original purchase was "internet one way" and the new fare was a "Ding" fare.) I took the credit to be used later on. By the time we flew to MCO for our trip the fare had gone from over $500 down to $210 total for two tickets