Those with Southwest Experience....

[Roxyfire]

Good to know. I've been looking at flights too for Southwest for October. Denver to Orlando. We don't fly often so I may be worried about changing them for credits. How long do the credits last before they expire? I like Southwest just for the fact that they don't charge for checked luggage.

12 months from the time you book. My son flies several times a year to visit family in memphis, due to the extra fee I pay for him being underage, I track those prices like a hawk. I book early and he easily ends up using those credits. To keep it all straight, I use a spreadsheet to note the Confirmation Number, date when purchased and the fare paid. Then every so often I'll check and see if it's gone up or down. Even if it goes down $3-4 dollars I get that credit back.

 

[Kmpcfp]

If you fly often with Southwest, check out the Rapid Rewards Premier card. It works for us, we use it for normal monthly expenses, and pay the bill in full. We haven't had to pay for a flight the past 3-4 years (except for $5.60 mandated airport fee one way) because of accumulated points and we fly a couple times a year.

I bring this up because when you book with points and cancel or change the flight, the points go back into your point pool.

And right now they have a 50,000 point bonus when you spend $2000 in the first 3 months, after that it is a $99 yearly fee but you get 6000 points (6000 points is about a $99 fare so it almost equals out).

https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/southwest/2rtfosam1

 

[Jadyreen1282]

The only thing I dislike is the seat yourself routine.

 

[Cynister]

I usually book early & check periodically, but I've only ever seen the go up for mine.

For those that have gotten credits, do you call & have them apply a credit to your account or are you somehow rebooking online?

 

[Allison]

Do you know there is a very active transportation board that is great for these questions? Check it,out.

 

[gtpoohbear]

I always book Southwest flights right away, then keep an eye on the fares in case they go down. But we fly often enough that I'll always be able to use the credit if they do.

Too many times I've seen the prices double and triple, or sell out completely, so I'm not willing to risk waiting.

 

[Wood Nymph]

For those that have gotten credits, do you call & have them apply a credit to your account or are you somehow rebooking online?

There is an option to change flights online. You will automatically receive the credit when you do this.

 

[jmkjr72]

I haven't noticed change in our may flight other then they canceled our return flight and bumped our return time up by 5 hours

 

[Cynister]

What if it's the same flight, just a different price?

 

[mom2rtk]

What if it's the same flight, just a different price?

You can rebook the same flight at a different price and get a credit for the price difference.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When I see prices fluctuate on SWA it's because of a few things:

1) A sale they had going on which is now expired (though most of their sales are for Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday flights only on domestic)
For example just got an e-mail today showing sale prices from my local airport with booking dates of 3/15/16-3/28 with the travel dates up to 5/25/16 and flight sales for going to FL only on Tuesday and Wednesday-keep in mind this is for my local airport therefore yours might be different

2) Because they sold out of a specific number of seats at a specified price
For example last Jan bought tickets for a May trip to Austin,TX. Played around with the number of adult tickets bought and found that I could only buy up to 3 tickets at a lower price and the other 2 had to be bought at a higher price. This meant they only had a specified number of tickets that could be sold at a specified price.

3) If later in the week airlines typically raise their pricing. In general Tuesday afternoon/night is the typically the best time to book. Most airlines release their sale pricing in the morning and then throughout the day adjust their pricing based on other airlines in order to offer the most competitive pricing but as the week goes on this is less and less of a big deal. Southwest may not be as big of a player in this as other airlines though.

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm really uncomfortable with all the "it WILL go down" answers. It CAN go down. It won't always go down. It's a gamble.

I've never checked on prices after booking, but I may start doing this for our September trip, just in case. We purchased the Early Bird check-in so t=would that be affected if we made changes to our existing reservation? I know that it is non-refundable, but did not know if it could be transferred to the new reservation.

If it doesn't transfer, call back and have them put it back on.

If you're booking with SW or Alaska there's no harm in checking. Both give you credit if the price goes down. (Alaska's way is easier, though they don't let you change flights to another)

Even if it goes down $3-4 dollars I get that credit back.

For those who do this less frequently, each time you get a credit to your account it's separate from other credits. You can only use (I believe) 4 methods of payment per ticket transaction. So if you bought 4 tickets and they've gone down 3 times, you've got 3 credits on each person's account. To pay for a future ticket, you'll have to do each separately b/c I doubt if one or two credits would cover a whole flight. Does that make sense? If it's 4, then you've got 3 credits and the rest on a CC...and then those other credits aren't being used.

Make sure you can use those credits before bothering to do it. The one time we did this with SW we didn't have the opportunity for another flight, and the credits went to waste. Was annoying.

For those that have gotten credits, do you call & have them apply a credit to your account or are you somehow rebooking online?

Do you know there is a very active transportation board that is great for these questions? Check it,out.

There is indeed.

What if it's the same flight, just a different price?

That's the usual scenario where people use this.

 

[cassie58]

We love SW, and usually book one way at a time(whichever we see the best price on or is most crucial to get). Then if it goes down, you can use the credit to book the other way. Our flight down in Dec. went down twice, and we used the credits from those two rebooks toward our flight back. Prices change frequently, so you do need to keep checking.

cassie58

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

They have a sale going on right now. That said, the 'sale' price for the flight I booked was exactly the same price as what I booked it for 5 months out. There is a lot of prevailing wisdom that you will get better prices closer in (90 days is apparently a rule of thumb) but with young kids, there are only so many times that work well for us and I don't want to get stuck with a connecting flight so I booked early. I checked back once or twice and they bounced by maybe $10. They must have gone up at some point if the price I paid is now considered a sale price, but I didn't see the volitility with SW that I see with other airlines.

 

[goofy4tink]

Do you know there is a very active transportation board that is great for these questions? Check it,out.

Thanks!!! I was just going to suggest that the OP head over to Transportation and see what they have to say!!!

 

[Vernie822]

Have you ever known Southwest prices to go up and then back down? I have been watching flights for October, but really wasn't quite ready to book yet until we finalize our plans, but I notice a lot of the flights I was watching have gone WAY up! Since it is still 7 months out, can I be hopeful that they will go back down some before then or will they just continue to go up?

Yes!

For one example, I am flying PIT to Nashville in August. Flight down was $97 - pretty darn good. A month later it was up to $250!!!! Now it's down to $127. Like others have said you'll get the credit back which is nice even if you do have to use it in a year.

Another example - we booked PIT to MCO in December for about $240 RT, pretty good in my opinion so we took it. Now prices dropped to $89 per way or $178 per person RT.. Even better! Although now I'm stuck with some credit $$ I don't know if we'll use because it dropped that much.

 

[SnipsNSnails]

Yes, check Tampa too. We saved $320 by flying the direct into Tampa rather than MCO in Feb. Worked fine for us since my parents were picking us up anyway, maybe 30 min extra travel time to their place. But it was cheaper to fly back through MCO. Even if it had meant not using ME on the way there, we could have gotten from Tampa to WDW for less than $320.

 

[Roxyfire]

Make sure you can use those credits before bothering to do it. The one time we did this with SW we didn't have the opportunity for another flight, and the credits went to waste. Was annoying.

I am working an edge case here, with a boy visiting his father 3-4 times a year. I've noticed since I started this the fare overall is lower than it used to be. But I also know what a good price is now, too. At first I made a ton of mistakes, even left a $20 credit out there because I just couldn't get it to work right. But yes this is also true. I'm paying an extra $50 on top of his ticket price so I'll take any discount I can get, but I often feel the need to lock in that one "good" nonstop flight per day that I find. MDW to MCO has many, many more flight scheduled than MDW to MEM so I can see the demand there is much greater. They probably don't need to discount all that much on that route.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

They have a sale going on right now. That said, the 'sale' price for the flight I booked was exactly the same price as what I booked it for 5 months out. There is a lot of prevailing wisdom that you will get better prices closer in (90 days is apparently a rule of thumb) but with young kids, there are only so many times that work well for us and I don't want to get stuck with a connecting flight so I booked early. I checked back once or twice and they bounced by maybe $10. They must have gone up at some point if the price I paid is now considered a sale price, but I didn't see the volitility with SW that I see with other airlines.

They have a lot of sales throughout the year. They had a sale for up to the 5/25/16 travel date (basically excluding memorial day travel) back in Jan/Feb too..it went away and about a month and a half later yay another sale with the exact same dates and conditions.

For me I got an e-mail on 3/8/16 that said book by 3/10/16 (3-day sale) then on 3/15/16 got another e-mail saying book by 3/28/16 for travel up to 5/25/16 for another sale..their sales don't always have to be the same price as each other and they do sell out on the number of specifically priced tickets. So considering the dates listed in this paragraph if you booked 3/11/16 to 3/14/16 for at least me there wouldn't have been a sale price and that's saying the dates booked were included in the sale anyways.

As far as booking closer to a certain point it's like hotels do for their rooms..airlines want full flights and in most cases nowadays they overbook flights. Up to a certain point they may discount last minute booking (though most of SWA sales require advanced booking of at least 14 days).

I'm like you though I book nonstop if I can..almost always there is some issue (weather, plane mechanical problems, delays in general, etc) when I do connecting flights though it's almost never an issue with my home airport.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I'm in the if you see a price you can live with, book it group. Is there one on this thread?

Anyways - costs of flights go up and down.

At least with SW, if you see the price go down you can call and receive a credit to be used on a future date. I did that on my March trip and ended up with enough credits to book EBCI which was really nice. Now I'm spoiled and want that every trip.