SW price increase...insane!

[pigletto]

We just decided to go on a summer trip yesterday. I first looked around noon and prices rose by 3pm. After 10 trips and flying Southwest almost every time I know two things,
A) prices will fluctuate often and
B) it's almost never cheaper to book flights on the weekends unless I booked high to begin with and looking for a credit.

While there are exceptions to every rule, I do pretty good by not booking on the weekends. I may hold out and wait for a sale if I can, but fully intend to follow the golden rule which is "When you see the price you can live with.. book it."
It isn't there yet.

 

[mikehn]

I had a similar experience with a cash reservation a month ago on my return flight for July. Checked the fare in the am at work and it was $120. Got home and tried to book and it had jumped to $250! Found another return 3 hours earlier for $120 so booked that. 2 days ago it was $130 and I forgot after work to change it. Looked yesterday and it fell to $120. Jumped on it and now finally have the flight I originally wanted for the right price.
One thing I did that seemed to help was to select the "don't save recent searches" option. I got much better price options that way. Also, when I checked at work it seemed better than at home, FWIW.
Bottom line, if you can pick flights that are not perfect time wise but you can live with if you need to at the right price, you can then keep checking back and change to better flights when prices drop. As many PPs have said, just keep checking back!

I completely agree, turn off the cookies when searching

 

[djmeredith]

I had a similar experience with a cash reservation a month ago on my return flight for July. Checked the fare in the am at work and it was $120. Got home and tried to book and it had jumped to $250! Found another return 3 hours earlier for $120 so booked that. 2 days ago it was $130 and I forgot after work to change it. Looked yesterday and it fell to $120. Jumped on it and now finally have the flight I originally wanted for the right price. One thing I did that seemed to help was to select the "don't save recent searches" option. I got much better price options that way. Also, when I checked at work it seemed better than at home, FWIW. Bottom line, if you can pick flights that are not perfect time wise but you can live with if you need to at the right price, you can then keep checking back and change to better flights when prices drop. As many PPs have said, just keep checking back!

How do you select "don't save searches." I'm not near a computer right now and don't recall seeing that on the front page. Thanks!

 

[preemiemama]

On the left side of the home page where you can put in the flight info- cities, dates, etc. Above it there is a drop down that says recent searches. At the bottom of the drop down is the option to not remember searches. That is what you should choose.

 

[djmeredith]

On the left side of the home page where you can put in the flight info- cities, dates, etc. Above it there is a drop down that says recent searches. At the bottom of the drop down is the option to not remember searches. That is what you should choose.

Thanks!

 

[DSLRuser]

Fuming at SW right now. A few days ago our flight out of PDX was only 8371 points. When to go book it today and it's now 14,742 points! Meanwhile, my parent's flight out of SEA hasn't changed at all points-wise.

Has anyone ever experience the point cost dropping after an increase like that with Southwest? Just wondering if I should just fork over the money to buy points now, or wait a while. This tightens our budget up bit.

supply and demand. airlines know how many seats at what price they have to sell to make a profit. Each flights has a mix of seats they need to sell for x price. they also know on average how long it takes to sell out.

best advice is to know what a "good" fare is, and jump on it when you see it. if you wait, it will be gone.

 

[keishashadow]

As already posted, it's not unusual for airlines to raise prices at the weekend when a lot of people are doing their vacation planning and drop them back down on Tuesday afternoon.

it's odd, but for some reason re SWA I tend to typically find price drops on the weekends for my market.

Had three different flights drop this weekend (yea!) yes, I do check often during the week, especially on Tuesdays

vs clearing cookies, inprivate browsing also works

 

[pigletgirl]

it's odd, but for some reason re SWA I tend to typically find price drops on the weekends for my market.

Had three different flights drop this weekend (yea!) yes, I do check often during the week, especially on Tuesdays

vs clearing cookies, inprivate browsing also works

I think to get more customers!

I booked our airfare for our trip to the World this past weekend. We're flying from STL and our round trip ticket individually is $332.00. It's a bargain! It seems to fluctuate with how quickly SW can book a full flight.

Anyways, I'm happy to get the GREAT deal!

 

[Andianna]

We fly out of BDL and prices are still the same for us 220 round trip non- stop each. Haven't seen anything below $105 for quite awhile.

 

[pigletto]

it's odd, but for some reason re SWA I tend to typically find price drops on the weekends for my market.

Had three different flights drop this weekend (yea!) yes, I do check often during the week, especially on Tuesdays

vs clearing cookies, inprivate browsing also works

I think it all depends how far away your trip is too. When the flights first open up here they are brutal on the weekends. Or as I discovered this weekend.. all the non-stops in a 10 day range show as sold out

 

[wendybeth75]

One advantage of booking with points is if the price drops, you just need to go in and do a modify reservation and the extra points go back into your RR account unrestricted.

Yes, I was going to suggest this as well. A lot of times the sales will come out on Tuesdays. Prices can change from day to day.

 

[djmeredith]

Is it unusual for the price not to change at all (literally not even $1) over a period of a few weeks? I've been checking rates to SNA for a July DL trip and they haven't fluctuated at all for about 6 weeks. I didn't know about the cookies/saved searches issue until reading this thread so I did all that yesterday and today and still no price difference at all. I changed the settings and turned off cookies because I had no idea that could affect my searches. I'm hoping the combo of doing that and it being Tuesday, that tomorrow I might have some luck.

 

[czmom]

Is it unusual for the price not to change at all (literally not even $1) over a period of a few weeks? I've been checking rates to SNA for a July DL trip and they haven't fluctuated at all for about 6 weeks. I didn't know about the cookies/saved searches issue until reading this thread so I did all that yesterday and today and still no price difference at all. I changed the settings and turned off cookies because I had no idea that could affect my searches. I'm hoping the combo of doing that and it being Tuesday, that tomorrow I might have some luck.

Our prices from HOU never change. Prices are not the lowest on opening day either. And sometimes we are included in a sale

 

[gmeh1]

I know this urban myth exists but...

It's based on the fact that it used to be a huge manual undertaking to load fare changes. So on Monday, the "bean counters" and marketing would look at sales for the last week and make the changes which were effective Tuesday.

Now, sophisticated computer systems monitor constantly and fare changes, both up and down, happen constantly. So if Delta announces a sale on Thursday, SW will match immediately!

The Tuesday affect is not near as great as it used to be.

Tuesday is when SWA announces their sales.

 

[djmeredith]

Our prices from HOU never change. Prices are not the lowest on opening day either. And sometimes we are included in a sale

It appears the route from Louisville, KY to SNA is in that same category. Still no fare change today. I'll book soon, but keep checking.

 

[tiggeraholic]

I have found flying out of Austin is a lot cheaper than Houston. We flew from Austin in February and are again in June. The 2 1/2 hour drive for me is worth it because I am an hour out of Hobby anyway. I booked June this morning on Southwest and paid $281.

 

[czmom]

I have found flying out of Austin is a lot cheaper than Houston. We flew from Austin in February and are again in June. The 2 1/2 hour drive for me is worth it because I am an hour out of Hobby anyway. I booked June this morning on Southwest and paid $281.

We did this in December and are doing it in May as well. Austin is literally half price of Hobby. Crazy!!! We are 45 minutes from Hobby, and 2 hours from Austin, so would prefer Hobby for sure. But the drive is worth the savings! And the airport is easier too.

And no sales at all for HOU today again.

 

[keishashadow]

I think it all depends how far away your trip is too. When the flights first open up here they are brutal on the weekends. Or as I discovered this weekend.. all the non-stops in a 10 day range show as sold out

I book on release day, last year or so it really didn't fluctuate much in our market since we tend to travel on the weekends.

this year I have two trips with mid week dates and they've had several price drops. Problem is I now have lots of little credits. I'm going to have to play around & combine them all into a ticket & then cancel & hope they still permit paying the penalty (think it's up to $100?) to extend...unless I can sneak in a weekend trip to somewhere this summer lol.

 

[Shadowcat70]

I went ahead and booked at the increased price, but ended up saving more money that I thought by only using points for tickets that could practically be purchased 100% with points, and paying cash for the other one. So hubby used points for 3 RT tickets to MCO, paid cash for a 4th RT ticket, then I used my points for 1 RT ticket, 1 one-way ticket, and paid cash for the other one-way ticket. Save about $200 that way.

One thing I don't like about using points is that everyone has their own confirmation number, even our kids! We're going to 24hr check in one adult from each group first so they can at least get on board and gets seats figured out for the rest of us, because it will be impossible to get everyone confirmed right at the 24 hour mark. I don't have that many devices with internet at my house!

 

[3happydancers]

I went ahead and booked at the increased price, but ended up saving more money that I thought by only using points for tickets that could practically be purchased 100% with points, and paying cash for the other one. So hubby used points for 3 RT tickets to MCO, paid cash for a 4th RT ticket, then I used my points for 1 RT ticket, 1 one-way ticket, and paid cash for the other one-way ticket. Save about $200 that way.

One thing I don't like about using points is that everyone has their own confirmation number, even our kids! We're going to 24hr check in one adult from each group first so they can at least get on board and gets seats figured out for the rest of us, because it will be impossible to get everyone confirmed right at the 24 hour mark. I don't have that many devices with internet at my house!

Booking by points saved us a bundle too! We are in the same situation with checking in. We are a group of 5, each with their own conf#, but the good thing is that the youngest kid is 16. Don't know if this helps but some have suggested to open several windows when you have individual confirmation #'s to check in. This way you don't need several devices. Anyhow. Good luck!