Will Southwest prices come down?

[ClanHarrison]

Yes, you can keep getting credits. Just be aware that every single time you adjust your flights to get the credits that while it may all be one confirmation number holding the credit, each individual person's flight for each adjustment will be a separate credit. Let me explain through an example since I think that was confusing.

You start with lights for 2 people at $99 each. The flight drops to $79 and you get the credit. You now have 2 separate credits for $20 each. The price drops again to $64 and you get the credit. You now have an additional 2 credits for $15 each meaning a total of 4 separate credits. When you go to play for a future flight, you can only use a total of 4 payment methods so if you need to make up the difference via credit card then you can only use 3 of these credits per booking. It's just something to keep in mind. I right now have 16 separate credits from my last trip. They add up to a total of $192 but they're in small increments. When they expire, none of them are big enough to be worth extending which really stinks.

Whoa!!! I had no I-DEA of this. Thank you for posting this!

Our reservation includes 8 people (one way). I've rebooked our flight to MCO twice now (booked @ $107, rebooked to $76 and again to $67), so that means we each hold 2 credits each, for a total of 16 credits, of which, I'll only be able to apply 3 of us (total of 6 credits) per reservation since I need a 4th slot for the final method of payment........right? Man, that sucks! Am I following you correctly? Soooo...does this mean....to get around this, I'll just have to break our return flight ressies into about 3 different ressie's (i.e. res. #1=3 ppl, res. #2=3 ppl & res. #3=2 ppl) in order to use all 16 credits?

I'm glad you brought this up because I never thought about this detail nor read about it before, so thank you very much.


P.S. *Giggle*...........................I like your screen name.


Edited to add this message of a SW ressie:
Apply funds one at a time. Up to two unused tickets per passenger may be applied. Unused tickets are always applied first. Up to four of the following may also be applied in any combination: southwestgiftcards®, Southwest LUV Vouchers, leftover electronic ticket funds, and one Credit Card.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Whoa!!! I had no I-DEA of this. Thank you for posting this!

Our reservation includes 8 people (one way). I've rebooked our flight to MCO twice now (booked @ $107, rebooked to $76 and again to $67), so that means we each hold 2 credits each, for a total of 16 credits, of which, I'll only be able to apply 3 of us (total of 6 credits) per reservation since I need a 4th slot for the final method of payment........right? Man, that sucks! Am I following you correctly? Soooo...does this mean....to get around this, I'll just have to break our return flight ressies into about 3 different ressie's (i.e. res. #1=3 ppl, res. #2=3 ppl & res. #3=2 ppl) in order to use all 16 credits?

I'm glad you brought this up because I never thought about this detail nor read about it before, so thank you very much.


P.S. *Giggle*...........................I like your screen name.

Personally, I've never had SW credits be broken down per person. Technically the email shows that you have say a $20 credit per person but when you use the credit- it shows the total credit from that leg of the fight. For example, for our October trip, both legs of the flight went down. We are a family of 3. I had two separate credits (one for each leg) NOT 6.

 

[clanmcculloch]

Whoa!!! I had no I-DEA of this. Thank you for posting this!

Our reservation includes 8 people (one way). I've rebooked our flight to MCO twice now (booked @ $107, rebooked to $76 and again to $67), so that means we each hold 2 credits each, for a total of 16 credits, of which, I'll only be able to apply 3 of us (total of 6 credits) per reservation since I need a 4th slot for the final method of payment........right? Man, that sucks! Am I following you correctly? Soooo...does this mean....to get around this, I'll just have to break our return flight ressies into about 3 different ressie's (i.e. res. #1=3 ppl, res. #2=3 ppl & res. #3=2 ppl) in order to use all 16 credits?

I'm glad you brought this up because I never thought about this detail nor read about it before, so thank you very much.


P.S. *Giggle*...........................I like your screen name.


Edited to add this message of a SW ressie:
Apply funds one at a time. Up to two unused tickets per passenger may be applied. Unused tickets are always applied first. Up to four of the following may also be applied in any combination: southwestgiftcards®, Southwest LUV Vouchers, leftover electronic ticket funds, and one Credit Card.

Yup, you understand it correctly. I'm frustrated by it. I've read a few times about people using credits to book fully refundable fares then cancelling those in order to combine the credits into single credits but I don't know if it works or not and I really don't want to try it without confirmation from anybody stating that they've successfully done it. If I could combine them into 1 credit then it would definitely be worth extending the credit once it expires (I think it's $50 to extend) but with the biggest one being I think $25, it's definitely not worth it.

We're thinking of heading down to WDW this summer but we're trying to decide between early summer in order to use the credits (booking a few of us separately in order to use them all) or just letting them go and travel later in the summer when we really want to. Room rates are cheaper later so that kind of invalidates the going earlier to use the credits.

Great minds think alike when it comes to screen names.

Personally, I've never had SW credits be broken down per person. Technically the email shows that you have say a $20 credit per person but when you use the credit- it shows the total credit from that leg of the fight. For example, for our October trip, both legs of the flight went down. We are a family of 3. I had two separate credits (one for each leg) NOT 6.

I think the SW rep who mentioned this to me said it was relatively new at the time (I was told about this last Aug or Sept). I had also read about this for a few months here on this board before I started requesting my credits but I stubbornly refused to believe it would be true for me because, well, I'm special and I can live in the world of denial very well.

When you look at your travel fund through the View Ticketless Travel Funds option under tools on the SWA site it does show as a single total for the confirmation number, but when you go to use them, they're definitely all separated. I've already gone through partially booking a flight to see how it would show up and I had to choose which 3 of my 12 credits I'd use. They were definitely all split out just like in the email.

 

[ClanHarrison]

I did a dummy reservation and it asks for the Conf. #, first & last name. What comes after I don't know. I didn't want to enter anything further. When I tried to did it again, the SW site is acting all glitchy this afternoon and giving error messages (We are currently unable to complete your request due to an undefined error. If this is the first time you have seen this message, please go back and try again. If you continue to have difficulties, please contact a Southwest Airlines Customer Representative for assistance at 1-800-I-FLY-SWA (1-800-435-9792). I'll play with it later...or call and speak to an agent to see if they have other alternatives. If not...I'll just do what I gotta do.

Thanks guys.

 

[Tam1067]

Whoa!!! I had no I-DEA of this. Thank you for posting this!

Our reservation includes 8 people (one way). I've rebooked our flight to MCO twice now (booked @ $107, rebooked to $76 and again to $67), so that means we each hold 2 credits each, for a total of 16 credits, of which, I'll only be able to apply 3 of us (total of 6 credits) per reservation since I need a 4th slot for the final method of payment........right? Man, that sucks! Am I following you correctly? Soooo...does this mean....to get around this, I'll just have to break our return flight ressies into about 3 different ressie's (i.e. res. #1=3 ppl, res. #2=3 ppl & res. #3=2 ppl) in order to use all 16 credits?

I'm glad you brought this up because I never thought about this detail nor read about it before, so thank you very much.


P.S. *Giggle*...........................I like your screen name.


Edited to add this message of a SW ressie:
Apply funds one at a time. Up to two unused tickets per passenger may be applied. Unused tickets are always applied first. Up to four of the following may also be applied in any combination: southwestgiftcards®, Southwest LUV Vouchers, leftover electronic ticket funds, and one Credit Card.

I had this happen on our flights last summer. There were 5 of us on the same reservation, but the credits ended up being separated out, so when I tried to use them on a single reservation a few months later, I could only do a total of 3, and then the #4 was the credit card I needed to use to pay the balance.

I just booked two people on one ticket and three on the other and applied the travel funds that way.

 

[ClanHarrison]

Thanks for the feedback .

 

[Tara]

I had this happen on our flights last summer. There were 5 of us on the same reservation, but the credits ended up being separated out, so when I tried to use them on a single reservation a few months later, I could only do a total of 3, and then the #4 was the credit card I needed to use to pay the balance.

I just booked two people on one ticket and three on the other and applied the travel funds that way.

Isn't it still true that you can use individual credits to book a single flight, then cancel it and get 1 credit back for it? I thought that's how others were getting around the new crediting system...that it's a way of consolidating credits (though a kind of PITA way).

 

[Tara]

Personally, I've never had SW credits be broken down per person. Technically the email shows that you have say a $20 credit per person but when you use the credit- it shows the total credit from that leg of the fight. For example, for our October trip, both legs of the flight went down. We are a family of 3. I had two separate credits (one for each leg) NOT 6.

I'm currently holding 2 credits for 2 different price drops on the same flight, and they are both listed with the same confirmation number, not different numbers.

 

[Hubbs]

Not as of this spring. All resorts are slowly starting to all check in for Southwest now

Here is the posted schedule

Here is the SWA/RAC expansion schedule....

GF, PO - Feb 23
CONT, WL, FW - March 2
Coronado - March 9
Y&B - March 16
BW - March 23
AKL - March 30
OKW - April 6
PO - April 20
CB - May 4

Where did you get this information? I'm coming up empty when searching for any such news, and given that the first 2 listed dates have come and gone with no reports here of Southwest participating in RAC at the 5 resorts listed, there's just no way this information could be accurate, I'm sorry to say. The Transportation Board would be all over that like a duck on a June bug!

I have come across this same schedule when searching the internet. This schedule is old and they have fallen behind, so it is probably not accurate. I have hear that BC has RAC with Southwest now. But even if you contact Southwest they will tell you that the value hotels have not gone live with RAC and we know that they have.

 

[Tara]

I have come across this same schedule when searching the internet. This schedule is old and they have fallen behind, so it is probably not accurate. I have hear that BC has RAC with Southwest now. But even if you contact Southwest they will tell you that the value hotels have not gone live with RAC and we know that they have.

There is a lengthy thread on the Southwest RAC expansion.

 

[stitchlovestink]

Can you keep getting credits everytime the flight is reduced or is it a 1 time thing? Example: if I buy my tix at $99 each, they get reduced to $79 and then to $59 - if I call when it was reduced to $79 and get the credit and then call again when its reduced to $59 will they give me another credit for the difference? only flew southwest once and got unbelievable prices on my first shot that never got better (actually got much more expensive) but on this trip, the flight dates will be released at different times. So, my plan is to buy the flight down when they are released to get the flight time we want, then hopefully the price will go down so that I have a credit for when my flight home date is released.

I hope that all makes sense

something else to keep in mind too is that you should book your trip to WDW separate from your trip home...
if you don't and the price of one way goes down but the other way happens to go up, you have to take both NEW prices. if you book each separate, you only have to deal w/ the one that has reduced in price. make sense?!

 

[Poohlovr]

I'm not sure it works that way any longer.

The price dropped on one leg of my flight. I was ready to kick myself, because, not thinking, I had booked our flights round trip.

When I clicked on "change flight" (or whatever it's called), it gave me ethe choice of outbound or inbound flights to change. I changed the flight down, but didn't touch the flight home.

A few days later, the flight home dropped, but, it was a different flight than the one we were on. I was able to change that.

When our original flight home later dropped, I was able to change back to that.

So, long story short, I was able to change just one way on our round trip flight--several times.

 

[Tara]

something else to keep in mind too is that you should book your trip to WDW separate from your trip home...
if you don't and the price of one way goes down but the other way happens to go up, you have to take both NEW prices. if you book each separate, you only have to deal w/ the one that has reduced in price. make sense?!

Nope, not necessary. It can make it a bit easier and less prone to accidentally booking over the wrong segment, but it isn't necessary at all to do this.

 

[DebbieB]

As SW Midwest hub they fly MD-80s out of St. Louis a lot from what I understand.

SW only flys 737's.

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Southwest_Airlines/information.php

St Louis is a SW hub? I think American has a hub in St Louis and flys MD-80's.

 

[starlionblue]

I'm no airline expert but I've read the book on their history. One tactic they rely on is called hedging. When car gas prices shot to $4 a gallon over a year ago, jet gas prices also shot through the roof and killed off a lot of competitors. SW turned a larger profit than all the others for a brief time because they had hedged fuel for a specific time period. In other words, suppose a gallon of jet fuel cost $3.00 in December. Their accountants suspect prices will climb and buy just enough fuel to get them through the summer. They keep it in reserve and continue buying and using it at $3.20 a gallon assuming prices are climbing (this is exactly what happened.). Remember, they haven't touched the prepaid fuel yet. Then comes $4 a gallon fuel. Everyone is suffering at the bank except SW because they simply go to the fuel reserves they bought 6-7 months ago and use it. Airlines go through so much fuel that they measure it by WEIGHT, not gallons! With prices staying flat, I wouldn't be surprised if they've already bought enough fuel to get them through the summer (remember, this is assuming prices will climb to $3.50 a gallon or higher). Will they turn a profit? I don't know. Were I an airline exec, I'd probably leave fares where they are and hope the fuel I socked away over the winter will get me through the big three (June-August). So my guess is, they might offer some discounted fares but I wouldn't bet on anything eye-catching. I hope this didn't sound too complicated but again, I'm no airline expert. Still, keep an eye on their website and ask around. A good website is airliners.net.

 

[clanmcculloch]

I'm currently holding 2 credits for 2 different price drops on the same flight, and they are both listed with the same confirmation number, not different numbers.

Yes, the confirmation number is the same. The thing is, when you go to use the credit, it will show as separate credit amounts per person per price drop and you'll have to choose which 3 you want to use. SWA does store all this information under the single confirmation number. When you use the Travel Fund Balance screen it does just show the total balance but when you go to use the credit, the individual credits will be split out and you'll have to choose which of them you want to use.

 

[Disney93]

Has anyone used RAC at the BWV that is traveling on SWA? I keep reading that it should have started Mar 23rd but haven't seen a post here. Maybe someone could let us know if it is up and running.