Southwest RR for President's Week

[Bowen9475]

Who has had success using a Southwest Rapid Rewards ticket to travel to Florida for President's week (especially from the Northeast)? What days/dates were you able to use them for? We have gone to WDW for the past several years during this week. We have always paid to fly down during the vacation week and used RR tickets for the trip home and have been able to get the Monday or Tuesday after the vacation week. This coming year we are planning to take a 7 night cruise - either Saturday/Saturday or Sunday/ Sunday. By then we should have enough RR credits for 4 roundtrip tickets, if not all 5. We would like to have the kids miss as few school days as possible. Thanks for any information!

 

[Bowen9475]

Anyone?

 

[mareed]

I have lots of experience using SW awards for Spring Break from TX, which is in March, but I think that the availability would be similar for you...

Unfortunately, the availability stinks! In order to use the awards, we've had to fly out the Thurs or Fri before and come back the Mon or Tues after. I've found zero availability in recent years (since they started capacity controls) on Sat or Sun. Also, we've had much better luck using them to/from Tampa than Orlando, and we always rent a car anyway, and the drive from Tampa is really pretty easy, so that's helped out, but still not enough to fly on weekends!

 

[LidoDeck]

My sister is a teacher in Maine. Her family was booked on a cruise with us President's week a couple years ago. Flights were very expensive, so I gave her a couple RR tickets. We were able to book her to Florida on them, but she had to make a stop in Baltimore and fly down Friday. We did OK for the return Sunday, but again with the stop in Baltimore.

 

[DoctorK]

We had good luck out of BUF Feb 2010, but we ultimately decided to drive instead. I got them the day the schedule opened up. That's really the key.

We're going the last week of August/first week of Sept, and I got the tickets within seconds of the schedule opening, but there was only one return flight that had award seats (11:30am). So your selection might not be ideal, but you should be able to get there and back on the days you want.

 

[Bowen9475]

Thanks for the information so far
Anyone else with experience from the Northeast?

 

[smacky1]

We used reward flights for one leg of our trip during Presidents week this year. We flew out of Manchester and I booked them the day the opened up. We left on Friday before Presidents week started. If you have any flexibility you should be able to find something that will work for you.

 

[Bowen9475]

Thanks to all who have responded.
I think that between what I've read and
what we've experienced in previous years,
we should be alright. My plan is to know what
dates I want and be on the computer as soon
as those dates open. Thanks again