I'm on the phone now with Southwest, wait time is now between 14-22 minutes. I was double booked this morning so I need to call and cancel one of these.
On a side note, I was looking for airfare to Fort Myers for Christmas. My daughter is in Florida at college in Orlando and my in-laws live outside Fort Myers.
I've been pricing airfare around Christmas and the flights are well into the $350-$400 price range. Having experience flying around the holidays, it gets very expensive, especially the longer you wait.
We had an ideal situation with Spirit Airlines out of Atlantic City, but I would not book a Spirit flight, besides with the added baggage fees for carry-on (if they do go back into business) just was too high when you added everything together.
So I've been pricing flights out of Philly, Atlantic City (Airtran), and Newark. All flights were between $350-$500 round trip. That's crazy.
Luckily, I guess (even I think the price is a bit high) I was able to get round-trip NON-STOP DIRECT flights for $310 each after all the taxes and fees. The price down was $164 and the return was $118. I booked, I'm not going to wait, the prices will only go up. We are flying 12/22-12/28. I even priced driving down and taking the autotrain back, nope, it was more expensive and when you factor in a 2 hour flight versus driving 20 hours, I'd rather put the money towards flying.
Ok, still on hold with Southest. Never flew them before, I hope this all goes smoothly: the refund, the flight.
Also, what are the benefits to $10 early bird check-in? I did not sign up for it, but will I be able to pick a seat 24 hours before the flight using online checkin?