If you book southwest, then wait for lower fares as your trip gets closer and specials come out....how often do you check the site for lower fares? Is there any way to do a fare alert with them? I'm okay with the amount I paid, but think it'll probably go lower between now and September.
Shannon
Mommy to 3 Princesses and 1 Prince
Miss M(11), J(8) and R(5), and Mr. N(4)
Everything I have read is that fares are going to go up.Originally Posted by 3Princesses1Prince
Not saying that they wont go down or have specials, but the airlines have already started raising fares because of fuel cost concerns.
The search function is like the Force. It may take practice, but the more you use it, the more control you will have over it!
I makes note to check every Tuesday. I've rebooked my tickets twice and have ended up with almost $300 credit.
They actually went up $10 RT/person the day after I booked. I'll be happy for a special between now and then, but its not a huge deal. If I did get a credit I may get a weekend trip with DH that's beyond driving distance.
Shannon
Mommy to 3 Princesses and 1 Prince
Miss M(11), J(8) and R(5), and Mr. N(4)
There are a few ways to be alerted to SWA specials. You can:
- follow their twitter feed @Southwestair
- "like" their Facebook page
- sign up for email alerts on their homepage
- Install DING on your computer to alert you to same-day fare specials
You can also use outside sources like FareCompare.com to set fare alerts.
Tuesday is that magical day that I've found to check airfares, too.
The other tool that I usually like to use is www.sidestep.com to compare prices from airlines to car rentals.
Have a Magical Day, Month, Year!!!
When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable ~ Walt Disney
Stephanie
~A man's character can be judged by the way he treats his dog.~
Okay I had a fare change issue with southwest last night. My return flight is another $10 cheaper but they wouldn't let me switch to the lower fare since I already switched it once. Actually I've switched my flights twice, once to switch airports and a 2nd switch on my return flight to get a better rate and later flight out of MCO. They said I had to cancel my flight and rebook it in order to get the additional credit??? Now if it was just me and DH, I'd be okay with doing that but I'm leery about canceling flights for 6 people. DH and I decided the extra credit wasn't worth the risk. Has anyone else had this issue?
Shannon
Mommy to 3 Princesses and 1 Prince
Miss M(11), J(8) and R(5), and Mr. N(4)
I rebooked my July trip twice - no problems. All online. Kept the same conf number and everything.
That just seems kind of odd. I've never looked, but I've never seen anything where it only says you can rebook once or twice.
Cathy
I'm not sure if it was because one of my flights wasn't changing for the 2nd time? I can cancel and rebook, and if the departure flight comes down too I will do it, but for a small fee change it was just easier to leave it alone.
Shannon
Mommy to 3 Princesses and 1 Prince
Miss M(11), J(8) and R(5), and Mr. N(4)
Shannon,
Where do you fly out of, and in general, what target price are you looking for?
Trying to plan out for next year's trip...and wondering if a $250 r/t price is do-able or wishful thinking... We can fly out of OAK, SFO, San Jose, Sac... Oakland would be preferred...I don't fly often, but have almost always used Southwest
Teddi ~ Wife to Rob. Mom to Bert 13, Chloe & Kaylie 8
1st ever trip to WDW 2013: Jan/Feb Cabins@ Fort Wilderness/Villas @ AKL Kidani
Heading back already!! May 11 - 18, Boardwalk Inn, Great-Grandma's 1st trip
Upcoming DL Trips: April 2-4, offsite, Mom & daughters trip
June: 18 - 22, Paradise Pier Aug: Disney EXPO, TBD
Those are the ones we looked at too. We are flying out of SFO. Ours came down to $159 each way, plus taxes. That's the lowest I've seen besides one day they were $139 but you arrived at 11 pm and left WDW at 8 am. SFO has higher taxes but more flights.
Shannon
Mommy to 3 Princesses and 1 Prince
Miss M(11), J(8) and R(5), and Mr. N(4)
Been watching the rates to fly into MCO late September and they stayed the same or went up. Today they came down a couple of dollars so my husband said we might as well book. Confirmation says 5:14 pm they were made. Now I went on to check flights for my son to meet us and some of the flights went from $108 to $59. Changed to the day earlier and saved $94, pays for an extra night's room and an extra day. Changed the flight home from Tampa to the exact same flight and saved $108. My husband has been checking these flights every day for a month, and they have only gone up. So glad I happened to go to the website tonight. Very happy traveler here!!
The $59 flights are gone, back up to $108 and $113 each. Just shows that it is good to check Soutwest often, even on the same day.
I gave up on booking with SW and booked with Delta. We are trying to get the most out of our 7 days, we fly out of BNA (Nashville) and after a layover in Atlanta we will land at MCO at 11:35 am, we are getting a rental car. Our return flight leaves out at 7:30 pm from MCO we will get back to Nashville at 11:11 pm (I think) which means we get more time to hit one last park on the last day. We paid a total for 4 round trip tickets, with taxes 1289.20 and will have to pay for 2 checked bags at 25 each for total of 100, so you might as well say we paid 1389.20. Right now the same flights are 1405.20 with tax not counting baggage. I just checked.
Planning WDW Dec 2014 WDW2008 off-site,WDW2010 Polynesian,
WDW Polynesian Dec 15-21 2011
It always amazes me when we see flights to FL from RI around $59. It costs me that much to fill the gas tank of my car, never mind an airplane. With car rentals so expensive these days we keep saying that maybe we should drive when we go for 10 days or 2 weeks, but we keep finding flights that make it cheaper. It it is a 2 day drive each way, so that means 2 nights hotel, plus all the gas and tolls, etc. Granted we can choose flights based on the price and fly mid-week cuz we work for ourselves. Plus, when you can change flights for no fee, and no luggage fees, and direct flights, we always fly Southwest now. I think this is the first time we ever got money credited to the charge card rather than future credit, and we have changed many times for better fares or change of dates.
I was about to say how changing flights just to get a credit that you may or may not be able to use in the future and calling it a savings is somewhat misleading. But if you were able to get an actual credit to your credit card, that's something else. (And the way it SHOULD be done, if you ask me.)
Is this something new for SWA?
The search function is like the Force. It may take practice, but the more you use it, the more control you will have over it!
The best way to get the low fares is to follow people on twitter who monitor fares. Otherwise you will spend your whole day clicking around the web.
SWA will refund money if the fare was booked as a refundable fare. It depends on the original ticket.
Ahh... that explains it.
The search function is like the Force. It may take practice, but the more you use it, the more control you will have over it!
I assumed it was because it was less than 12 hours later. At one time I think I heard something about changes made within 24 hours were refundable. You used to be able to transfer credited funds to anyone with the comfirmation number, to be used within one year of the original purchae date. Now it has been changed to only the person originally booked, which makes it harder to use.
I hope to use the saved money to stay on property instead of a cheap rate through Hotwire.
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