** update-sale posted 7/12 Southwest fares open tomorrow, 7/7/2016 for travel thru March 7/2017

[keishashadow]

OMG I can't believe I did this (and that I'm admitting to you all) - I booked the WRONG date!! DOH!! I went back up to lay back down in bed and as soon as I closed my eyes I saw an image of the calendar in my head and I bolted up and realized that I needed to book Jan. 9th not the 10th!! OMG. So I quickly did a search and the same flight on the 9th was already up to $106 as was the next earlier one but the NEXT later flight direct at 7:55 was still at $89 so I did a change. Uggg. Yes, that gives us more time @ Disney but we don't land until 10:05 and we're an hour away so I'd have preferred a smidge earlier landing (esp in the winter). I guess I will keep watching to see if there's ever any drops on that 6:20. Glad I was able to save my price in the end - and THANK GOD for no change fees on SW!!! Whew!!!

Haha it happens, nice to see it worked out

Yesterday SWA substantially changed our October flight time down to MCO. This is the 3rd time change. I'm not a fan of this sort of flight that requires me to leave my home @ 2:30 am.

Logged into site to book a later morning oneIt disappeared! Best I can tell they eliminated one, possibly two going from memory, combining everyone onto one NS.

Bonus points it was showing sold out. Decided to sit on it and decide if I wanted to leave quite so early or cancel entirely for a refund, going with one of the other lower-priced carriers (Spirit, Allegiant or Frontier).

Checked it one more time late last night and saw a huge price drop.Thinking more than a few decided to cancel entirely.

Good news is: bonus trip! Credit large enough to pay for a flight leg into Florida. bad is I need to use by middle of February. My DVC points are allocated elsewhere for next year & DCL cruise prices are scary. Think I'll do it backwards, book the air (using points for 2nd leg home) for week I'm interested in and then decide what we'll be doing. Maybe a resort stay & short cruise. At least there is the flexibility to move things around once I do figure it out.

 

[neitzelt]

Best of luck to all others - living in MI? We ditched SW.

This had to do with the SW elimination of direct flights.... all MI-Orlando flights, going & coming, now go thru Midway in Chicago. 2.5 hour flights are now 5+ hour flights. And if one is "dumped" at Midway? Good luck getting home.

We switched to Delta, thru Detroit. STILL one stop, both ways - but if we get dumped in Detroit? Going, we have options. Returning? Rent a car one way, drive home. VERY important when the weather gets even marginal.

The whole affair was a pity, as SW had a VERY lucrative, full plane every time, business out of Flint MI. They dumped it. No problem, not my company . In our area? I see SW is having trouble selling tickets. Fortunately, we NEVER fell for the "airline miles" head fake . Dumped SW & went with Delta - and will ignore any Delta "miles" garbage.....

All just what we did, all personal opinion - I'm not right, you aren't wrong....

I just booked Flint to Orlando, nonstop, both ways, for January 21-29 - I was happy to see that they still had the nonstop flights! Hopefully you can find one?!

 

[Anal Annie]

Thank goodness you remembered! So jealous of your rates. I just paid $300 one-way for our return flights (even tried just 2 tickets to see if I could get 2 cheaper).

Oh I might have waited on buying those then. How many tix? I am not convinced that I always get THE best rate this way unless I watch it EVERY day and check. Be sure to look for drops so you can get credits!! I have waited & hawked daily and SOMETIMES there's a drop for just a day - and SOMETIMES it's only for 1 seat. We don't pay for EBCI so now my flights going DOWN are complicated becuz I split them up - I will have to check in for 1 on my phone and do it simultaneously on my computer for the others whenever I finally spring for them. Honestly right now I am hoping fares hold until the 25th when I get a payment from some online work into my PayPal acct. - I have some money already in there & when I get this next bit I'll have about enough to cover the other 2 flights.

 

[Anal Annie]

Haha it happens, nice to see it worked out

Yesterday SWA substantially changed our October flight time down to MCO. This is the 3rd time change. I'm not a fan of this sort of flight that requires me to leave my home @ 2:30 am.

Logged into site to book a later morning oneIt disappeared! Best I can tell they eliminated one, possibly two going from memory, combining everyone onto one NS.

Bonus points it was showing sold out. Decided to sit on it and decide if I wanted to leave quite so early or cancel entirely for a refund, going with one of the other lower-priced carriers (Spirit, Allegiant or Frontier).

Checked it one more time late last night and saw a huge price drop.Thinking more than a few decided to cancel entirely.

Good news is: bonus trip! Credit large enough to pay for a flight leg into Florida. bad is I need to use by middle of February. My DVC points are allocated elsewhere for next year & DCL cruise prices are scary. Think I'll do it backwards, book the air (using points for 2nd leg home) for week I'm interested in and then decide what we'll be doing. Maybe a resort stay & short cruise. At least there is the flexibility to move things around once I do figure it out.

Hummm. Maybe they'll change the schedule again & put it back? I have our Sept. flight going down booked on JetBlue and I sometimes watch it for crazy stuff like that and sometimes they will suddenly show an entire flight as unavailable or sold out but then the next day it's completely back. I'd watch it & see.

 

[cmarsh31]

Oh I might have waited on buying those then. How many tix? I am not convinced that I always get THE best rate this way unless I watch it EVERY day and check. Be sure to look for drops so you can get credits!! I have waited & hawked daily and SOMETIMES there's a drop for just a day - and SOMETIMES it's only for 1 seat. We don't pay for EBCI so now my flights going DOWN are complicated becuz I split them up - I will have to check in for 1 on my phone and do it simultaneously on my computer for the others whenever I finally spring for them. Honestly right now I am hoping fares hold until the 25th when I get a payment from some online work into my PayPal acct. - I have some money already in there & when I get this next bit I'll have about enough to cover the other 2 flights.

All the want to get away fares for Sunday are sold out right now. 4 tickets - I tried to do pairs. I'm going to look for drops but I'm not hopeful.

 

[Anal Annie]

All the want to get away fares for Sunday are sold out right now. 4 tickets - I tried to do pairs. I'm going to look for drops but I'm not hopeful.

YIKES! When is this for? Is it a holiday? That's crazy!

 

[LisaS]

OMG I can't believe I did this (and that I'm admitting to you all) - I booked the WRONG date!! DOH!!

Totally understandable when you are barely awake and trying to book your flights quickly so that you don't lose out on one of a limited number of cheap fares!

For the record: what time did the schedule go live?

 

[ScubaCat]

I've never gotten the best deals booking right when the schedule opens up. I guess it's a YMMV situation. Usually the sales that come out later offer far better rates.

 

[mrsR123]

Thanks again, Bill, for the heads-up. I got my return trip flights for January 6th this morning. Nonstops to IND for 114. I'm happy with that.

 

[cmarsh31]

YIKES! When is this for? Is it a holiday? That's crazy!

Yup, Feb break/president's week in the Northeast. I watched fares for last Feb. Never went down. Eventually Sunday will completely sell out, all flights, all price-points. We are fleeing the frozen tundra from the only airport within a 3 hour radius.

 

[keishashadow]

Yup, Feb break/president's week in the Northeast. I watched fares for last Feb. Never went down. Eventually Sunday will completely sell out, all flights, all price-points. We are fleeing the frozen tundra from the only airport within a 3 hour radius.

I was surprised by the bump up for those dates, don't remember paying that much last time we traveled over pres day but it's been at least 5 years. What airport?

I went with week prior. Sunday was $123 pp from PIT, used the flight credit. coming back $114 on Saturday but booked on points, figure it'll drop as we are taking the late afternoon NS versus the last NS flight out.

 

[cmarsh31]

I was surprised by the bump up for those dates, don't remember paying that much last time we traveled over pres day but it's been at least 5 years. What airport?

I went with week prior. Sunday was $123 pp from PIT, used the flight credit. coming back $114 on Saturday but booked on points, figure it'll drop as we are taking the late afternoon NS versus the last NS flight out.

Albany. I'm just resigned to it. I've got part of it booked on points, but the rest had to be cash.

 

[keishashadow]

Albany. I'm just resigned to it. I've got part of it booked on points, but the rest had to be cash.

I priced into Jacksonville thinking we might just take a short cruise. It was almost double that into MCO. So glad we finally have some competition @ PIT, prices have been decent.

 

[cmarsh31]

I priced into Jacksonville thinking we might just take a short cruise. It was almost double that into MCO. So glad we finally have some competition @ PIT, prices have been decent.

For our Oct trip, I got RT for $191pp - it's just Feb that's really, truly insane. If I average them together, it's reasonable!

 

[Anal Annie]

Totally understandable when you are barely awake and trying to book your flights quickly so that you don't lose out on one of a limited number of cheap fares!

For the record: what time did the schedule go live?

Not sure - I grabbed my phone at 6:30 to check to see if they were out & if I needed to "really" get up yet. The search showed they were released so I got up.

I think part of my problem was that I didn't see the post that they were coming out until 12:30 am - I've been sick so I went up to bed but couldn't fall asleep as now I have this chronic cough - I watched HGTV until probably 2:00 am. Then I was awake at least a doz. times between then and 6:20 when the alarm went off for my DH to get up. So I was extremely groggy!!! At least that's my excuse & I'm sticking with it!!

 

[drusba]

I've never gotten the best deals booking right when the schedule opens up. I guess it's a YMMV situation. Usually the sales that come out later offer far better rates.

That is generally true for us also from Chicago. Very often the new fares when released are high and then come down later, often by a lot, e.g., I have a Sep trip where fares when initially released were $156 each way and we eventually got tickets for $107 each way, although you have to keep checking regularly because any decrease when made sometimes lasts only for a short period. Chicago's advantage is that we tend to have almost unlimited Southwest direct flights to Orlando in that Southwest, when flights get close to full, just adds more flights, and Southwest has real competition here from other airlines. The newly published fares look very high for the time we want, lowest is $162 each way, and we will wait. Waiting does not always work, particularly when the period is a high reservation time like holidays or many of the times from Oct through Dec, but it usually does.

 

[cdnjason]

Travel Tools


We are currently accepting air reservations through January 4, 2017. On July 7, 2016 we will open our schedule for sale through March 7, 2017. This date is subject to change! Please check back frequently.

I really appreciate you updating us with SWA flight schedules. I try to book our flights asap. I'll be waiting for their schedule to open through June of '17.

 

[LisaS]

I really appreciate you updating us with SWA flight schedules. I try to book our flights asap. I'll be waiting for their schedule to open through June of '17.

This is the current information on the next release date:

On August 4, 2016 we will open our schedule for sale through April 24, 2017. This date is subject to change. Please check back frequently. Currently we are accepting air reservations through March 8, 2017.

Be sure to check that information on Southwest's website from time to time. They sometimes move up the release date by a couple of weeks, often on very short notice.

You can find that info on the Travel Tools page (as BillPA posted) and also on the Flight Schedules page. There is a link to the Flight Schedules page at the bottom of Southwest's home page, under the column "Flying Southwest". You can also find a link to it by clicking on "FLIGHT | HOTEL | CAR" at the top of the home page (over on the right), and click on "Flight Schedules" under the "Flight" column. Unfortunately since Southwest posts the release info on two different pages (Travel Tools and Flight Schedules), they occasionally are out of synch. I've seen a last-minute change to the release date posted on one page and not the other.

 

[cdnjason]

This is the current information on the next release date:

Be sure to check that information on Southwest's website from time to time. They sometimes move up the release date by a couple of weeks, often on very short notice.

You can find that info on the Travel Tools page (as BillPA posted) and also on the Flight Schedules page. There is a link to the Flight Schedules page at the bottom of Southwest's home page, under the column "Flying Southwest". You can also find a link to it by clicking on "FLIGHT | HOTEL | CAR" at the top of the home page (over on the right), and click on "Flight Schedules" under the "Flight" column. Unfortunately since Southwest posts the release info on two different pages (Travel Tools and Flight Schedules), they occasionally are out of synch. I've seen a last-minute change to the release date posted on one page and not the other.

Thanks! I did not know that.

 

[sanibel93]

That is generally true for us also from Chicago. Very often the new fares when released are high and then come down later, often by a lot, e.g., I have a Sep trip where fares when initially released were $156 each way and we eventually got tickets for $107 each way, although you have to keep checking regularly because any decrease when made sometimes lasts only for a short period. Chicago's advantage is that we tend to have almost unlimited Southwest direct flights to Orlando in that Southwest, when flights get close to full, just adds more flights, and Southwest has real competition here from other airlines. The newly published fares look very high for the time we want, lowest is $162 each way, and we will wait. Waiting does not always work, particularly when the period is a high reservation time like holidays or many of the times from Oct through Dec, but it usually does.

I agree, I fly out of Chicago and have been finding this true. I paid $159 each way from Chicago to Orlando for a October trip when the fares just came out. Rebook for new fares twice already and am down to $109 each way. Also have a trip booked in August to Fort Myers and booked when fares came out $142 each way. Rebooked since then and got going down for $112 and return $122. Did not book for a trip to OKW in February when the fares came out at the $162 rate, will wait this out and see if they come down.