Any one familiar with SouthWest trends?
 

Wondering if they usually have a seat sale at the beginning of the year..,been watching for one but nothing yet. (Looking to book fare for early March.)

Also, if their lowest rate fare is unavailable now, is it likely to come up later? (Looking to book are for late May.)

Any insights much appreciated - enjoy-la!

Have you signed up to get emails with sale prices? Or better yet, download DING! and get even better deals.

They do have sales from time to time, but honestly, I can't tell you any pattern, sorry. I find the emails alerts and DING! to be the best way.

You can book a flight now, and if the fare goes down, you can get the difference as a credit for a future flight. There is no change fee, however, only you can use the credit.

Just looking back at emails - there was a sale on 1/3/12. Previous one was 12/13/11.

And looking back to last years' emails [I really need to clean out my inbox]:

Spring Deals sent 1/11/11
Travel Deals sent 1/18/11

wannagetaway web fares always good deals for me from $99
southwest.com for sales rarely gets better,if spirit.com
is going your way they have super cdeals at times from $29
even free for me with points CC in past.Even got FREE to Colombia with tem last yeat 5000 points each way.

Happy Hunting!

DebitNM, thx a mint for your replies & very helpful info! :) I am signed up for Ding & emails - recently I was so excited everytime I saw a SW email come in but they were only for LV vacations...LOL! I did see that one on Jan 3 but rates were the same as when I checked in late Nov. What a great idea to check my Trash for trends.

qwovadis, thx a mint for your reply and ref to Sprint - unfortunately they're not in my small market.

As fate would have it, there's a 3-day sale starting today. Haven't seen a Ding nor email for it yet but saw it under Specials when I went to check fares this morning...been checking everyday.

No deals to Orlando for me on their current specials but one leg dropped from $154 yesterday back to the $124 I'd been seeing. So I picked up both my March and May tix. March tix was $10 more for 1 leg. May tix had dropped back to $124 from $134 yesterday. What freaked me to buy now is for May return leg I wanted the last flight out ($134) and now the lowest fare for that is $365!! I booked the next earlier flight but it is a stopover...will monitor and change if something comes up.

Enjoy-la!

Just got a sale email! Hope it helps!

Well for future lurkers, I'll answer my own question and provide a tip...

If Wanna Get Away fares are unavailable, they may become available later on. I wanted the last flight of the nite which was also a non-stop flight, but WGA fares (should be around $134pp) were not available for it. Next class of ticket was $365pp. I bought the 2nd to last flight of the nite on a WGA fare, but there was 1 stopover: ~$194pp. I was using it as my "back up" plan as SW has an excellent change policy without fees.

I kept checking and almost a week later, WGA fares became available for that non-stop last flight: $189pp. I scooped those seats up right away...hurrah! And rec'd a $11 credit to boot (but I really didn't care about this, just happy to get the last non-stop).

Here's something I found out about applying your credits from changed flights...any credits applied effectively backdates the use date of your current ticket/credit. For example, when I first booked the flight on Jan 10, 2012 I used a $14 credit from an old ticket that was bought Sep 2011. When I changed the flight to the non-stop flight, the fare decreased and I had a $11 credit given. However, that $11 credit's new use-by date is not Jan 10, 2013 but Sept 2012. That is, any applied credits changes the use date for the entire fare.

Why is this useful to know? If it's a minor amount, it may be beneficial to forego the credit and extend the use-by date if you anticipate the fares to change.

Enjoy-la!

I think the reason your $11 credit has an expiration date of Sept 2012 is because you had a $14 credit. They in essences gave you back $11 of that $14 credit, so the date would be Sept 2012. I don't think it would make the entire fare credit [IF you had cancelled the entire ticket} would have gone back to Sept 2012 - I think it would have had 2 dates, $14 for Sept 2012 and the remainder Jan 2013]

Ah, that makes much more sense. Thx for the clarification :)

Enjoy-la!

Southwest is killing me now since I'm waiting on a decent fare from Columbus to New Orleans for May. Last September I booked with Delta and BAM, about a month later there was a fare war and SW had absolutely wonderful fares and times - of course, with the change cost on Delta it wasn't worth messing with them. I'm waiting now and stalking their website regularly day and night.......

I'm on their frequent flyer program, and we get specials sent to us about once a week. The BIG deals come a couple times a year -- one back in december.

And yes, if a plane is not full, they do start reducing. I have had to make last minute changes, and sometimes I get a lower price, sometimes a higher price. You just have to keep checking and rechecking.

For those Fodorites still looking to pickup a good fare, I noticed on SW's site they're having a 4 day sales - started yesterday but I have yet to receive notfication via ding or e-mail. No big drops for any of my flights - one leg went down $5. Good luck!

Enjoy-la!