Southwest fly/play free question

[nuzmom]

We currently are staying on points from Sept. 10-22. I do not plan on adding the dining plan because at $40 per person/night, it's not cost effective. I currently have plane tickets (Southwest) for our trip.

While checking southwest's website today, I saw a WDW B1G1 promotion (I think they say friends fly/play for free).

Our current trip:
Plane tickets - $717
10 day water park & more tickets (mousesaver savings) - $1110

If we booked via southwest:
Plane/ASMu/10 day water park & more tickets - $2483.34

So, for an additional $667, we would have free dining for our stay (13 days/12 nights). That is definitely less than what we will spend otherwise.

Questions:
1) I read that the free dining is included in southwest's promotion - does anyone know if that's true?
2) Can I cancel my current flights and use ticketless travel to book the vacation promotion?
3) I've read some comments about booking a room and not staying in it, but why or why not do this?

 

[pamjb]

Questions:
1) I read that the free dining is included in southwest's promotion - does anyone know if that's true?
2) Can I cancel my current flights and use ticketless travel to book the vacation promotion?
3) I've read some comments about booking a room and not staying in it, but why or why not do this?

1) Can't help you with that, but it should be mentioned somewhere in the promo.
2) Nope. Southwest vacations is a separate entity from Southwest airlines. I tried this for a trip earlier this year. No can Do
3) Can't help with this one. Personally, I wouldn't do it. It blocks the use of the room from someone else. I know this was a solution for DVC members for the first year of Free Dining!

 

[nuzmom]

Pamjb - thanks.
Definitely a "no go" with not being able to use ticketless travel funds. Oh well. Sounds like a very good deal for someone who wants a last minute vacation.

 

[grimley1968]

When I looked at this promo the other day, I noticed there was a link on that page to the free dining promo. I don't think this is combinable with that, though. I priced a sample trip out both ways (with free dining but w/o SWA's deal and only with SWA's deal) and the price came out almost even.

 

[Pirate1+Princess4]

I looked into this over the weekend.

Friends fly free portion is based on full fare, not discounted fare.

Play free portion is charged at adult ticket price. We have 2 adults and 5 kids. I expected to have 1 adult pay and one free. Then pay for 3 kids tickets and get 2 free. But online and through SW customer service it priced out with 4 adult park tickets.

I do not know what the room rate was, as it was priced as air+room. Then you added park tickets at the "friends play free" rate. You could not add DDP to the offer.

Also, the "friends" package was only good for travel M - TH, and some of the days were already unavailable by Saturday AM, making it difficult to back up to the weekends for us. It would have required us to take kids out of school more than the 5 days we originally planned, by "book-ending" weekends.

It was a nice deal, until I found I had a PIN for free dining in December.