Uughh... Total Budget Buster - SWA

[Julylady]

My sister has been watching flight prices for her March cruise for several months. She finally bought a one-way ticket for the trip down since the price was reasonable. On Wednesday morning, she found a United flight for her return trip on Kayak for $148. The link took her to the United site. She booked and paid for the flight. Later than day the same flight was selling on the United website for $680.

 

[MinnieForMe]

If you are flying a school vacation week, you will likely not see a reduction in price because of the demand. We are always shocked at how much cheaper it is to fly out of another state that doesn't have school vacation the same as ours as SW has the prices almost half. We found that the release date has been the cheapest price for school vacation week in February. I did find this year that Delta had a cheaper price than SW for the same week. It might be worth it to check.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I guess it depends on the airport but on swa from Philly there are many dates in March & April that are only $62 each way. Mostly Tues and Wed.
It helps if you can be flexible but I too have kids in HS so sometimes that's not possible.

 

[queenbeen]

We ended up changing our dates from late November to early December for Disney because of airfare costs. Southwest didn't have any WGA rates on the dates I was looking into initally, but we are now paying $180 roundtrip per person after pushing the trip back a few days. Spring break is definitely going to be an expensive time to fly, but I hope you're able to get a better rate eventually.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We ended up changing our dates from late November to early December for Disney because of airfare costs. Southwest didn't have any WGA rates on the dates I was looking into initally, but we are now paying $180 roundtrip per person after pushing the trip back a few days. Spring break is definitely going to be an expensive time to fly, but I hope you're able to get a better rate eventually.

This isn't always so simple with cruises. Depending on how long ago OP booked it's possible other sailings have increased in price. Generally, as each sailing fills up, the price increases. So if she booked early and now looks at a different sailing, it could be a huge increase. It could also be a huge drop but usually that comes with pulling kids out of school which is hard when they get older.

 

[LynnTH]

OP here. At least I'm not the only one seeing it. Very frustrating as we have flown this same time for years and this is the only year it has been like this. I never thought to look at WI airports. I tried different airports in Florida but that wasn't any better. Driving would be 24 hours and in MN you never know what the weather will be. It is over kids spring break so can't change dates. They are both in high school so won't take them out. Will keep looking. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[disneypanda11]

I would just keep watching. I, personally, haven't found the release date fares to be the lowest. You are still a bit out, so I would just check regularly. Good luck!

Just wanted to second this! We booked using points on release day, and adjusted our flights about 3 months later because the fares dropped significantly and we got a nice refund of points.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

OP here. At least I'm not the only one seeing it. Very frustrating as we have flown this same time for years and this is the only year it has been like this. I never thought to look at WI airports. I tried different airports in Florida but that wasn't any better. Driving would be 24 hours and in MN you never know what the weather will be. It is over kids spring break so can't change dates. They are both in high school so won't take them out. Will keep looking. Thanks for the ideas.

Sometimes it's good to get creative. We're in between Philly and Atlantic City but if needed we could drive 2 hrs to Baltimore which is a SWA hub. They have so many non stops per day, like 10-15, and almost always lower than Philly. So it's out of the way and inconvenient but if my only other alternative is driving 20+ hours each way, I'd settle for a 2 hour drive to save a few thousand $$. (and my sanity.)
Hopefully you can find some less expensive alternative to your usual travel so you don't have to drive all the way to FL.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Sometimes it's good to get creative. We're in between Philly and Atlantic City but if needed we could drive 2 hrs to Baltimore which is a SWA hub. They have so many non stops per day, like 10-15, and almost always lower than Philly. So it's out of the way and inconvenient but if my only other alternative is driving 20+ hours each way, I'd settle for a 2 hour drive to save a few thousand $$. (and my sanity.)
Hopefully you can find some less expensive alternative to your usual travel so you don't have to drive all the way to FL.

This is what we do too.

We're 15 minutes from philly, 45 from Atlantic city and 2 hours from Baltimore.

I booked Baltimore for our trip bc Philly was outrageous. Finally 3 days ago prices dropped and I switched to Philly. We got all 4 for $840. Today those same flights are $2000!!!!!

 

[LynnTH]

Ok. So, I booked flights this weekend. I tried a bunch of different scenarios. We are flying from MSP (this is the same) to Jacksonville, FL and back the same way. These flights were 10,575 points per person each way. So, total points was 84,600. Still a bit higher than usual but at least we did not have to pay for airfare. Jacksonville to Miami is a about 4-5 hour drive. So, we will just rent a car for the day each way. I know the rates are really cheap for car rentals - about the same if we would have had to get a shuttle from FLL to Miami anyway. Only thing is that we now have to come back on Monday instead of Sunday, so kids will have to miss 2 days of school. Didn't really want to do that but to save a few thousand dollars it was a no brainer... Just glad we are booked. Can sleep better now!!

 

[Crystal824]

We have the same issue. We booked yesterday for our March trip. The flight down is $113 per person not too bad. The flight back is $280 per person. We were hoping to have enough points to cover the entire trip. We would if the flights back weren't more than double the cost of the flights down.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Ok. So, I booked flights this weekend. I tried a bunch of different scenarios. We are flying from MSP (this is the same) to Jacksonville, FL and back the same way. These flights were 10,575 points per person each way. So, total points was 84,600. Still a bit higher than usual but at least we did not have to pay for airfare. Jacksonville to Miami is a about 4-5 hour drive. So, we will just rent a car for the day each way. I know the rates are really cheap for car rentals - about the same if we would have had to get a shuttle from FLL to Miami anyway. Only thing is that we now have to come back on Monday instead of Sunday, so kids will have to miss 2 days of school. Didn't really want to do that but to save a few thousand dollars it was a no brainer... Just glad we are booked. Can sleep better now!!

Yay!
And they all lived happily ever after.

 

[Pkltm]

Keep checking! We usually fly out of MCO and pay about 250 per person. When they released our dates it was over $600 per, so we booked Delta, I just checked now and it it down to 220 each 6 weeks out.

 

[LynnTH]

I am going to keep checking closer airports. At least with SW there is no change fees. Would be nice if something else opened up...

 

[KKB]

This happened to us for our cruise out of FLL next March. Outbound $218, inbound $550!! WHAT??!! And all the other airlines were similarly priced (that outbound has to be after 10AM since it is a cruise).
I got creative & we are flying out of Kansas City for $550 each. It is about 75 min. to OMA & 2.5 hrs. to KC--worth it to save $450!
Flights are not as cheap as they used to be; and having done a number of cruises over the years, and often over our spring break, those airlines always jack up weekend rates. The last 2 years we took 5 day cruises as the return flight on a Thursday was half of those on Sunday.

 

[mom2rose&john]

I am in the same situation. Easter break vacation 3-20-16 to 3-27-16 . Found Jet Blue direct from Buf to Mco for $189 on the 20th and purchased. Prices are $299-349 per tix. for JB and SW for the days we want to come back. Tues prices fall to $139. How is this not price gouging?

 

[KKB]

Not gouging--charging what the market will bear, the basis of our economy. Prices are always higher when demand is higher.

 

[LynnTH]

I think what is most frustrating is that we go the same time every year and fly on the weekends And we fly SW every year. This is the 1st year that "Wanna Get Away" fares were not available. In the past I always had a choice of times and the points value was reasonable on the 1st day of booking and they may or may not go up after that. But this time it wasn't even an option and there other fares were ridiculous.

 

[kathy884]

We aren't going to Orlando or Florida for spring break this year, but for us I'm seeing flight prices over spring break down there similar to what they have been in the past, maybe a little higher -- $168 each way and readily available on Saturday's down and back, which I think is pretty reasonable.

I feel your pain though for booking at popular times. Some extended family are going over Thanksgiving and invited any or all of us to join. I looked at Wednesday to Sunday -- OMG -- Sunday especially was crazy bringing fares to $850 pp round trip. And other airlines other than SW were even higher. We decided to just send DS -- going out Wed. a.m. and coming back Saturday around 6 p.m. and that was $450, about $114 per person more than what spring break would be.