Southwest vacations?

[swoodard]

Has anyone ever used southwest to book there vacation. I just did one online and it said a 5 night stay at POP, 5 day tickets with hopper, roundtrip airfare and a rental car was only $2744.44. This will be for 2 adults and two children. For what pricing I have done this seems like a very good price. Anyone have any input?

 

[penjen]

You didn't say how many people were going?

 

[swoodard]

It will be myself, wife, 11 year old and a 7 year old.

 

[jwann]

You know, I just checked Southwest Vacations and I saved $70 off our 3 night stay at POP in early May -- over booking the hotel through Disney and the airfare alone through SWA. Thanks for the tip!

 

[schuh]

I used southwest vacations last year and we got an awesome deal (I thought anyway).. 5 nights @ yatch club 6 day park hopper passes, free dining pkg. round trip air from Buffalo NY and magical express for $3,000. that was for 2 adults a 12yr. old and a 9yr. old. We went the last week in August and it was awesome! I hope I have the same luck this year! Have a great time!

 

[mill4023]

You also didn't give your travel dates and the city you are flying from. This is important info to be able to compare prices and see if you are saving money or not.
Here is about what you would pay if you aren't doing a package:
Tickets from Ticketmania with Mousesavers discount: $896
Rental car for 5 days: probably around $150
5 nights at Pop at rack rate: $440 (value season) OR $641 (peak season)

When you subtract the other items from the total quote, it means you're paying between $264 and $314(depending on season) per person for your plane tickets. Doesn't sound like much of a deal to me, but I guess if it's during a peak flying season and you're coming from cross country, it could be.

 

[Beauties n the Beast]

I thought I got a good rate also when I did it earlier, but since my time for vacation is August, and they aren't booking that far out, I just had to do a test for June..it came out cheaper, but it could be the time also.

 

[mill4023]

I just checked prices on a sample trip.
2 adults, a 7 yr old, and an 11 yr old.
Roundtrip airfare from Portland, OR.
7 nights at POP from 5/20 - 5/27.
7 day MYW w/hopping.

SWA Vacations gives me a quote of $3435. (and that's including their "$75 off special")

Then I checked the price of booking separately, with the exact same items.
7 nights at POP at rack rate.
Airfare on exact same flights booked directly through Southwest.com.
7 day MYW w/hopping bought from Ticketmania.

Total price was $3397.
With a AAA discount on the room and the Mousesavers discount on the tickets, you could get it down to $3258.

I don't think anyone booking through SWA Vacations is getting any kind of deal. If you think you are, please post the dates and details, because I'd love to be proven wrong. But every time I've ever looked, it always turned out cheaper to book everything separately.

 

[GsMom]

I also checked on SWA Vacations and came up with $2687.80 with the $75 off discount. I know it does depend on which flights you choose but I picked the least expensive ones along with 7 nights POP, 7 day MYW w/hopping for May 20-27 for 2 adults and 2 children (7 and 11) out of Portland, OR.

Sometimes you can get a better rate packaging it together because you can get better airfare (depending if there is a sale or not). Plus the package discount ($75 off in this case).

 

[mill4023]

I also checked on SWA Vacations and came up with $2687.80 with the $75 off discount. I know it does depend on which flights you choose but I picked the least expensive ones along with 7 nights POP, 7 day MYW w/hopping for May 20-27 for 2 adults and 2 children (7 and 11) out of Portland, OR.

Sometimes you can get a better rate packaging it together because you can get better airfare (depending if there is a sale or not). Plus the package discount ($75 off in this case).

I just tried again choosing the least expensive flights.
I got a total of 2933 booking separately.
The flights for the PDX > MCO portion are available directly through southwest.com for $99 each way. The odd part is that for the MCO > PDX portion, the flights that swavacations.com let me pick are not even listed as an option on southwest.com.

So it looks like when you book a package, you don't specifically get a discount off of any of the individual component prices, BUT you still may be able to save money because there may be cheaper flights that are only available for package buyers. I wonder if SW sets aside a certain number of cheap seats specifically for their packages.

In any case, make sure you check both ways because booking a package could be more expensive.