Southwest prices are crazy!

[kaytieeldr]

wish Southwest had red eye flights to MCO from any of our airports.

Relatively certain Southwest doesn't schedule overnight flights.

It is definitely more than I paid last year

But what isn't?

 

[chiisai]

SW for us has taken away many non stops and some have 1 a day, but not even all year. We too are flying other carriers now.. been with them for years, cardholders as well...
Disappointing

I was disappointed to find no non-stop flights for our April trip. I tried a few different days, but couldn’t find anything. Ended up splitting between two other carriers. Bummed.

 

[richmo]

I found Southwest to be a lot higher for my March trip this year, as well. I generally find Southwest fares (from PHL) around the $100-$150 range, but this time it was $212 heading south and $350 going north. What I originally did was take the $212 going south and using some credits from an earlier flight to lessen the sting on that and booked a $169 going north, but from TPA instead of MCO. (I rent a car...the one way rental MCO to TPA was slightly more than MCO-MCO would be, but not much). I had enough SW points to pay for that one.

Now that my dates are really firm, I cancelled the TPA-PHL trip home and booked MCO-PHL on Frontier for $79 (of course, that became $129 once I added in a bag and a seat) and saved the Southwest points for another time. I'm still keeping an eye on that southbound $212, but its done nothing but go up since I booked it.

 

[emilymad]

My family has stopped flying SWA in the past year. We can fly on American for less even with the baggage fees. SWA has also cut way back on non-stop flights from our airport to three a day. American offers twice as many non-stops to Orlando. I really like SWA's personnel better than American's but the bottom line is that it is less than a 2 hour flight and it's almost $100/pp cheaper on AA.

We agree with this. Flights on American are more frequent and better priced. We would switch to them but we have some Southwest points we want to use.

We refuse to fly Southwests connecting flights. I am not flying from Philly to Chicago to get to Orlando. That is just complete nonsense.

 

[_19disnA]

It is always a good idea to compare prices on various airlines. New routes are added or dropped all the time. If you live near multiple airports also good to see what combination gets you the best prices. Some of those connecting flights make NO sense, but most airlines try to route you through one of their hubs in order to fill the outbound planes. Be sure to include checked bag fees, seat assignment fees, etc. so you are actually comparing the same things. Many airlines make it LOOK like they have a low 'fare', but once you add in all the of those extra 'fees', the total price may not be nearly as attractive.

 

[Monorail_Man_NJ]

Southwest has been WAY MORE EXPENSIVE in the last year than previously. To the point where I had to book American in November and using JETBLUE in May.

Used to always get cheap fares on SW. I saw once in 2017 a fare from MCO - PHL (red eye) for 19 one way. Those days are gone.

Love Southwest. But its not cheapest anymore.

 

[emilymad]

We fly in September on SW PHL - MCO for less than $60 one way. SW does still have cheap fares but it is not working out for us this time. But every airline is more expensive then usual.

I wonder if they are still hedging their bets due to the government shutdown.

 

[Monorail_Man_NJ]

We fly in September on SW PHL - MCO for less than $60 one way. SW does still have cheap fares but it is not working out for us this time. But every airline is more expensive then usual.

I wonder if they are still hedging their bets due to the government shutdown.

I think they are raising there prices and still telling everyone they arent going to go the "BASIC ECONOMY" route like United, American etc are doing now. So they look like they are saving you money but just raised fares.

 

[bcbmommy]

Thanks for your replies! I'll keep checking every day, and checking other airlines, as well. Since we are a long drive to anywhere, I'm even checking a couple other airports that are 6 hours away. Our closest is 2 hours, but the one we use most is about 4 1/2.

 

[jewood1234]

Goodness, it's looking like our March trip may cost us $700+ pp just for flights. There are 6 of us, so that's a chunk! Is there any way they'll go down before then? We may as well do Hawaii!

We flew into Tampa last year and saved 200/pp. Might be worth it even including shuttle or 1way car rental ?

 

[Monorail_Man_NJ]

I usually use Kayak to check fares on a regular basis. It however does not show SWA flights so you have to check separately for them.

I think out the airlines that are doing the "Basic Economy" route where you have to pay for everything etc. Jet Blue has the best model. It gives you atleast a carry on bag and complimentary seat assignment. United doesnt even give you a carry on bag.

Not sure of your area but Im literally equal distance between Philadelphia and New York so I have a lot of options for originating airport. PHL has to be SWA or American. And EWR has to be SWA, United or Jet Blue (cheap fare wise)

 

[bcbmommy]

I usually use Kayak to check fares on a regular basis. It however does not show SWA flights so you have to check separately for them.

I think out the airlines that are doing the "Basic Economy" route where you have to pay for everything etc. Jet Blue has the best model. It gives you atleast a carry on bag and complimentary seat assignment. United doesnt even give you a carry on bag.

Not sure of your area but Im literally equal distance between Philadelphia and New York so I have a lot of options for originating airport. PHL has to be SWA or American. And EWR has to be SWA, United or Jet Blue (cheap fare wise)

Oh wow, I didn't realize that about United! Unfortunately, Jet Blue doesn't even fly to/from our state, Kansas, so our options are limited. Such is life in the middle of nowhere! lol.

 

[cel_disney]

Definitely look at the following to help with costs:

- change your travel day (can you go one day earlier or later - will one day of school or work make or break things?)
- look at different carriers for each leg. There is no benefit to buying a round trip ticket anymore - don’t feel obligated to!
- check different arrival and departure airports. Sounds like you have the departure airports covered - but make sure to check the arrival ones as well. Orlando, Sanford, Tampa..

On our Veterans Day trip we flew out of Tampa instead of Orlando. The car rental price difference was negligible. The flight difference was huge. And the airport was very nice! (If you fly out of Tampa and are returning a car - it’s worth being there 1.5 hours early for the skycap/rental car drop off point! You can leave luggage and get boarding passes before boarding the tram and not have any lines!! We will definitely consider this in the future!)

 

[kydisneyfans]

We look at SW first. Just returned from a trip to Orlando where it was under $200 RT from Louisville.
For our New Orleans trip, we went with Delta. Better times, much better price. We have the Delta Amex card so luggage cost is 0.
For an April trip to Disney, SW is locked in the upper 200's. We are equidistant from Louisville and Cincinnati, so we checked Delta from Cincy, which is $120 per person less. Times are better too. We'll be taking Delta.

Flexibility is key. Change dates a day either direction. Check surrounding airports both where you live and near Orlando. We saved $400 on a flight by flying into Melbourne instead of Orlando. We've flown into Tampa several times. A one way rental to Disney typically runs about $60, but you can make a food stop that will save three times that on the way in.

For this March though, it's spring break. You may be too late.

 

[_19disnA]

United DOES allow a personal item if you bought a 'basic economy' ticket, but NOT something that is really a piece of luggage. Many try to bring their luggage on the plane to avoid paying the checked baggage fee and there is often nowhere to store such bulky items (and slows down the boarding process for everyone else).

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-us/travel/Pages/BaggageCarry-On.aspx?POS=US

 

[MillauFr]

I believe Southwest has figured out that people are willing to pay more for a higher quality product. Southwest is near the top in customer satisfaction surveys. American is near the bottom. No wonder they can get away with charging more in places like Philadelphia where they compete.

 

[Donnainnj]

We have a trip in early May. Southwest was not offering non-stop out of Newark so we ended up in phl. Even with that change we needed to come home on a 6:40am flight to make it affordable. (Points) I will keep watching. If it weren't for a $100 credit we got last trip for a delay, (ground stop related, so I was grateful we got if) we would have probably flown Jetblue out of Newark.

 

[Darcy03231]

10 years ago Southwest was our airline of choice. It flies out of our local airport, prices were great and they had a lot of non-stop flights. Slowly prices started creeping up, but that was ok. Airport is local and still lots of non-stop flights. Then they started reducing non-stop flights. Today, prices are higher than other carriers and there are no non-stop flights to places we want to go. We now user a bigger airport in a major city that's about an hour and a half from our house, rather than Southwest at the local airport that's half an hour away. Prices are better because there's more competition, better flight times and it's easy to get to with bus service. You may be better off checking with other airlines.

 

[Marionnette]

Southwest schedule opened up thru Oct. 1 this morning. We have a trip planned for September (Sun. -Sat.), so I wanted to jump on the fares early. Two passengers flying RT PHL<->MCO, ECBI, 30K RR points and $100+ for fees. And they weren't even the best flight times!

If we didn't have the RR points, I'm not sure that we would have booked.

 

[justlook3]

Since they just released through Oct 1 this morning, I checked for my September trip. Over $630 for 2 people flying from DAL-MCO roundtrip (and since the fare is exactly the same every day in September it didn't matter). Sad thing is that DFW-MCO on American Basic Economy is about $20 more. Flying to Tampa costs even more. It's almost half the fare out of Austin, so considering driving the three and a half hours.