Southwest - President's Week - Northeast - How Did You Do?

[Bowen9475]

How did everyone do with getting flights for President's week from the Northeast? How much did you pay? We were able to get 5 RR tickets from Providence to Orlando, late afternoon, on Thursday 2/17. I was happy with that. For the trip home I have only gotten one so far, Monday 2/28, mid-afternoon, also using a RR ticket. So how did you do?

 

[roadtripper]

Did you get to use standard awards, or Freedom awards? I had no availability at 7 AM for standard awards, so I had to convert to a Freedom award to get 1 ticket free. Fri to Fri, nonstop out of Manchester. With the one free ticket, we're still at 1500.00 for 4. Eek!!!

 

[lionqueen]

In my opinion the rates are OUTRAGEOUS!! Last year I booked President's week for $600 for 3 of us....this year it comes to over $1500!!!! We won't be flying for that much and might not even vacation that week. Here's hoping those flights go down....although i'm not very hopeful.

p.s. when did they release the flights?? every year I've done it they've released the flights between 10-11 am. This morning they were already released when I checked at 8 am

 

[roadtripper]

p.s. when did they release the flights?? every year I've done it they've released the flights between 10-11 am. This morning they were already released when I checked at 8 am

My girlfriend checked on a whim at around 6 AM and they were up. The Ding! didn't go out until around 8.

 

[Bowen9475]

I was able to use standard awards but I was able to be a little flexible, therein being why we got Thursday and Monday I still have to book 4 more to come home but I will be getting one more RR ticket tomorrow. The kids and I may have to wait until Tuesday to fly home because the Monday flight my husband is on is no longer available. We may also switch his return to Tuesday so we all fly home together. Also, I was able to book at about 7:15 this morning.

 

[NHDisneyMom]

We got Sun to Sun of pres. week for $184 down and $234 back. MHT - MCO and MCO - MHT. This is our second trip this year so we didn't want to pull the kids for even a day, but next time - mid week to mid week! I have learned my lesson!! Choices and prices were so much better mid week. We have a plane change on the way down and a stop with no change on the way back. No big deal, but my fingers are crossed that the weather co-operates. Kids are getting older so I think they will be fine with the change. Just don't want to get stuck in an airport for 24+ hours. Hoping for good weather karma!

 

[melk]

We got $93 down, $234 back, to and from Providence. I can live with those prices. Really wanted to take JetBlue but their prices were just too high.

 

[Sherrkel]

We got $99 down (had to adjust our travel dates) for MHT - MCO 2/16; then $244 back 2/25. Both non-stop. I'm good with that; I've been stressing watching the $1,000 Delta and $800 JetBlue non-stop fares for months and weeks! I'm finally feeling some relief.
Now; on to ADRs for our Free Dining package . . .

 

[twinklebug]

My girlfriend checked on a whim at around 6 AM and they were up. The Ding! didn't go out until around 8.

6am sounds about right for when the primary server is updated with Southwest. The problem I've run into in the past was that based on my server location, I'm redirected to a secondary Southwest server which isn't updated (cascade update?) until that 10-11am time frame lionqueen mentioned above. By then all the low priced fares are sold out for the popular dates. You know you're on a secondary server when you see prices posted in the month view, but can't see them in the daily view.

Looks like they may have fixed that issue... I hope. Taking notes for booking next year for Feb 2012.

ETA: I see a release email from SW from 12:45 in the morning stating that the airfare was posted. Seems awfully early to me. Did anyone book this early?

 

[disneyvacalover]

I was very surpised to see the fares were open so early. I just checked on a whim at 8:15 fully preparing to sit out the morning hitting the refresh button. I didn't do too bad-but did think the fares were high. Last year for the same weeks I paid $62.00/way direct Buffalo to Orlando and back. This year the lowest I could get was $89.00. So $1196.00 for my family of 6. I guess in comparison to many people across the country that's pretty good. Were just spoiled in Buffalo with good fares.
I even had to depart for home a day later than normal because there were no low fares on Monday the 28th. Not the case the last few years.

 

[Mom2BCCC]

I was very surpised to see the fares were open so early. I just checked on a whim at 8:15 fully preparing to sit out the morning hitting the refresh button. I didn't do too bad-but did think the fares were high. Last year for the same weeks I paid $62.00/way direct Buffalo to Orlando and back. This year the lowest I could get was $89.00. So $1196.00 for my family of 6. I guess in comparison to many people across the country that's pretty good. Were just spoiled in Buffalo with good fares.
I even had to depart for home a day later than normal because there were no low fares on Monday the 28th. Not the case the last few years.

I think you did great. Ours was $2,024 for a family of six from Providence. And thats with flying down Wed 2/23 ($99) and returning 2/28 (around $237). We are going for the Princess 1/2 marathon so I wanted to return on Monday.

 

[Erin12303]

Hi-
The way down for two of us out of Albany, NY non stop to MCO was $681 on 2/19. I was able to use my rapid rewards flight for our return. Pretty expensive for one way!

 

[smacky1]

We had to shuffle our dates around a bit. I had planned on spending 2 weeks and was hoping to fly down on the 2/21 and fly home on 3/6. We ended up booking 2/17 ($154)-3/2($99) MHT-MCO. We could have done it a little cheaper if we were willing to either fly into tampa or take flights that were not non stop. We decided that since our kids are still young (4 and 6) it would be worth the $200 extra to get the non stop flights to the airport that is closest. I think on travel day we will be thankful we did that.

 

[Telcogirl]

In my opinion the rates are OUTRAGEOUS!! Last year I booked President's week for $600 for 3 of us....this year it comes to over $1500!!!! We won't be flying for that much and might not even vacation that week. Here's hoping those flights go down....although i'm not very hopeful.

p.s. when did they release the flights?? every year I've done it they've released the flights between 10-11 am. This morning they were already released when I checked at 8 am

I agree with you lionqueen. The prices for this week are outrageous! I don't know if it was because the schedule opened earlier than we all expected it to and any Wanna Get Away fares were already booked. But for my family of three to fly PVD-FLL on 2/12 and then from MCO-PVD on 2/19, it would have been close to $1500.

I ended up booking Delta for us to fly down on 2/11 instead and we are not going to disney after our cruise like we had planned. We will fly home right out of FLL. We saved $800 on airfare that way. Of course we lost our time at disney, but we couldn't justify the price of the airfare on SW.

 

[DISvirgin1]

I think we are paying about $2,000 for a family of 4 (330 for 2 adults and 315 for two kid on the way down, 195 for all on the way back). We had hoped it would be a bit less.
I had talked with a SW agent a few weeks ago who said they rates wouldn't come out until 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. On a whim I decided to check at 7:30 and not only were they out, most of the cheaper flights were gone. DH is a teacher so we can't adjust our dates much. If we ever go back it will probably be in the summer when we have more wiggle room.

ETA: We are leaving form Albany, NY.

 

[jeff968]

I feel bad for you guys. I lucked out so much this year. I found non-stops out of JFK to MCO on AA for $179 each, leaving Friday 2/18 at noon, return Sunday 2/28 at 8:00am. I haven't done that well in years. My wife works in the school system as well so we are tied to that week but it is always a great week. I wish you luck. Hopefully the fares come down.

 

[Bowen9475]

Our grand total ended up being $339.40 for our family of 5 to fly roundtrip from PVD to MCO, Thursday February 28 and Tuesday March 1. We were able to use 4 Southwest RR tickets.