Southwest Rapid Rewards - Spring chicken? Should I book now or wait for lower summer fares?

Except for this week's one-day wonder sale (I wonder if the website will let me book anything?), Southwest has held prices high for all dates after June 27, 2012. High means $99 to $100 for intra-California fights that were $69 to $79 last summer including taxes.

Normally I wait for fares to drop to the expected sale price before I buy. in past years that happened between 12 and 8 weeks before the travel date. Now I'm down to 5 weeks.

Southwest and I are playing a game of chicken this spring (thus the goofy title of this thread). I still haven't bought anything at all past June 27. I figure: Why book at the high price when I'll just have to do extra work to rebook later during a fare sale?

Yesterday I had an idea. I could book the summer flights using points. Normally it's inadvisable for an A-list Preferred member to spend points on his own travel, because paid WGA tickets earn 20% effective rebate. This situation might warrant an exception.

Booking with points protects my ability to fly when I wanted to. When a good sale fare appears I can just buy those tickets and refund the points bookings to my RR account. That's pretty simple compared to juggling ticketless funds while rebooking a set of trips at a lower fare.

I think I'll go with this idea unless somebody has a good argument to make that summer intra-California fares will not drop below $100. What do people here think?

I am doing the same thing (albeit for Texas travel).

We are probably a month away from the big June sale (hit June 20th last year for the $40/$80/$120 sale - for flights after August 20-something).

Any travel before that I booked with points (and hoping for lesser fares to rebook for $ - although not counting on it). Any travel in late August or later - I am holding out until the June sale.

I certainly book WGA fares for myself using points for leisure travel - and for the rest of family as well. I don't even know if you're five-week time frame holds true - pricing drops seem to be random with some routes with low demand getting price drops months out while others on days out. Consider the following two examples:

AUS -> LAX fares (I have booked with points) are a minimum of $200 OW from June on. Except that last week, they were offering WGA fares for *this* week as low as $160. Today they are offering $160 fares for those flying out Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. Your best bets are the NS flights. So, two days out gets you a $160 fare. Hell, they might go cheaper.

AUS -> SEA is a bit different. For late August I had booked in points the equivalent of $196 each way. On Black Tuesday, before their website melted, the fare for the return had dropped to $135 and I was able to rebook. Looking it at today, it's now dropped to $125. Time to refare!

I am already doing what nsx is proposing. I also repeatedly and relentlessly rerun flight searches. My only concern is that I am filling seats on a plane, thereby decreasing the chances that the fare will be reduced to something reasonable.

I used to laugh when WN advertised that the 50,000 point bonus for getting the Chase credit card was only good for 2 RT tickets. That joke is getting considerably less funny.

I also repeatedly and relentlessly rerun flight searches. My only concern is that I am filling seats on a plane, thereby decreasing the chances that the fare will be reduced to something reasonable.

I do the same and have the same concern. To make myself feel a little better, I try to tell myself that several of my booked reservations are really 2 seats (since I will eventually add my companion when I'm fairly certain that the price won't go down further or that the flight is close to selling out) but my current reservation takes only 1 seat away from the lowest marginal fare bucket - so, my chances of the fare being reduced are not as bad as they could be (if I already added my companion). Of course, WN could have some algorithm in their pricing engine that accounts for the statistical likelihood that a companion may be added to a CP holder's reservation - but, this is WN IT; so, methinks not.

Except for this week's one-day wonder sale (I wonder if the website will let me book anything?), Southwest has held prices high for all dates after June 27, 2012. High means $99 to $100 for intra-California fights that were $69 to $79 last summer including taxes.

Normally I wait for fares to drop to the expected sale price before I buy. in past years that happened between 12 and 8 weeks before the travel date. Now I'm down to 5 weeks.

Southwest and I are playing a game of chicken this spring (thus the goofy title of this thread). I still haven't bought anything at all past June 27. I figure: Why book at the high price when I'll just have to do extra work to rebook later during a fare sale?

Yesterday I had an idea. I could book the summer flights using points. Normally it's inadvisable for an A-list Preferred member to spend points on his own travel, because paid WGA tickets earn 20% effective rebate. This situation might warrant an exception.

Booking with points protects my ability to fly when I wanted to. When a good sale fare appears I can just buy those tickets and refund the points bookings to my RR account. That's pretty simple compared to juggling ticketless funds while rebooking a set of trips at a lower fare.

I think I'll go with this idea unless somebody has a good argument to make that summer intra-California fares will not drop below $100. What do people here think?

Downside: if fares don't drop, in fact, as WGA fares go up as travel dates approach, you are stuck having to use your points tix. Buy the tix with $$, and just accept the time hit to monitor and refare if fares go down. I've already re-fared our family vacation tix in August, originally booked in March.

Now, the REAL game of chicken is going on with me and other SLC-captive DL flyers. DL is winning, and you lose either way unless you get lucky and manage to hit the "sweet spot" (sometimes there isn't one!) I have spreadsheets tracking fares by dates with specific DL routes/times for past months and I'm not doing all that well predicting future trends. I'm currently booking DL tix 6-8 weeks out. Gotta love the WN policy of allowing repricing down when fares go down. Wish WN would fly into my tiny hometown SGU airport, but that's not going to happen. I hafta travel by car 130 miles each way to get from SGU to LAS to fly WN. On DL, every trip I make must start with a segment SGU-SLC.

I am already doing what nsx is proposing. I also repeatedly and relentlessly rerun flight searches. My only concern is that I am filling seats on a plane, thereby decreasing the chances that the fare will be reduced to something reasonable.


I wonder if seats paid by points fill up WGA fare buckets. Probably.

Now, the REAL game of chicken is going on with me and other SLC-captive DL flyers. DL is winning, and you lose either way unless you get lucky and manage to hit the "sweet spot" (sometimes there isn't one!) I have spreadsheets tracking fares by dates with specific DL routes/times for past months and I'm not doing all that well predicting future trends. I'm currently booking DL tix 6-8 weeks out.

This is the real danger to WN and it happens to me too. I was looking for weeks at STL-RSW for my parents. WN kept the fares at $169 one way or higher the entire time, often over $200. When DL went to $118 and the trip was only 4 weeks away, I had them buy tickets on DL. Of course, that ended WN's chances, since the DL fare had penalties to cancel. A week later, WN went down to $132, which I would have bought if it had been offered sooner.

Keeping your fares high and playing chicken may work for WN if people are committed to WN. But if a legacy swoops in with a low fare, you have to pull the trigger.

I wonder if seats paid by points fill up WGA fare buckets. Probably.

I think it depends on whether one uses points for a WGA, AT, or BS fare since one can choose to redeem points for any type of fare (at different point pricing levels). Though, I doubt many people are consistently using points for anything other than WGA fares.

I am playing chicken with WN now as well.

Booked a flight MDW-MCO on points and am watching AA to see what happens. AA has just dropped fares to where it may make more sense to go with them, even though I have a CP and am taking my Companion.

Keep vigilant, WN!

This is the real danger to WN and it happens to me too. I was looking for weeks at STL-RSW for my parents. WN kept the fares at $169 one way or higher the entire time, often over $200. When DL went to $118 and the trip was only 4 weeks away, I had them buy tickets on DL. Of course, that ended WN's chances, since the DL fare had penalties to cancel. A week later, WN went down to $132, which I would have bought if it had been offered sooner.


Since I book pretty much all travel (both paid and points) with WN, I hadn't even considered the effect of market pricing on a route.

Currently, I have a AUS -> LAX RT booked in points with a fare value of $390. Sure enough, Orbitz shows that route going for about $400 on every airline. For AUS -> SEA, I have the cost down to $321 and sure enough, United has the same route on those dates for $260.

Safe to assume WN will keep fares relatively in line with competitors then drops prices on specific flights that aren't selling well. Sometimes 5-6 weeks out, sometimes just a few days out. Tomorrow, AUS -> LAX is still as low as $160 where Orbitz is showing cheapest fare at $200.

Since I book pretty much all travel (both paid and points) with WN, I hadn't even considered the effect of market pricing on a route.

Currently, I have a AUS -> LAX RT booked in points with a fare value of $390. Sure enough, Orbitz shows that route going for about $400 on every airline. For AUS -> SEA, I have the cost down to $321 and sure enough, United has the same route on those dates for $260.

Safe to assume WN will keep fares relatively in line with competitors then drops prices on specific flights that aren't selling well. Sometimes 5-6 weeks out, sometimes just a few days out. Tomorrow, AUS -> LAX is still as low as $160 where Orbitz is showing cheapest fare at $200.

I'm not so sure; I'm occasionally seeing fairly big differences; perhaps not when compared to WN's lowest fare for a specific day, but when comparing near the same flight times, now that the difference between the lowest and highest WN fare on a single day can be appreciable. In your own AUS-SEA example, I'd say that $61 difference is substantial.

I wonder if seats paid by points fill up WGA fare buckets. Probably.

Points and $ bookings are treated exactly the same not just for BS/AT/WGA classification, but down to the specific fare class within WGA. This can be seen either by peeking behind the scenes or by varying the number of passengers when requesting a quote. For example, if there are only four seats at a given fare and you try to book five, the points requirement for all five seats will be higher, just as the fare would be higher.

Something isn't quite right when we are all waiting for the legacies to swoop in with fare sales to pressure WN fares downward! I'm a loyal customer but only up until the point it makes good fiscal sense. This applies regardless of whether or not i'm traveling on the company's dime or my own.

I'm not so sure; I'm occasionally seeing fairly big differences; perhaps not when compared to WN's lowest fare for a specific day, but when comparing near the same flight times, now that the difference between the lowest and highest WN fare on a single day can be appreciable. In your own AUS-SEA example, I'd say that $61 difference is substantial.

I said *relatively* and you said *occasional big differences*. That's pretty much the same. Obviously, there are going to be times where WN is the highest, and by a lot. But I think in those instances that's going to be a specific flight with high demand.

While that $61 is a big difference, only UA was down that low. Every other airline was within $10 of WN and quite a few were much, much higher.

I also provided an example where WN was at $160 and everyone else was at $200.

Points and $ bookings are treated exactly the same not just for BS/AT/WGA classification, but down to the specific fare class within WGA. This can be seen either by peeking behind the scenes or by varying the number of passengers when requesting a quote. For example, if there are only four seats at a given fare and you try to book five, the points requirement for all five seats will be higher, just as the fare would be higher.

Good to know.

Since I book pretty much all travel (both paid and points) with WN, I hadn't even considered the effect of market pricing on a route.

Currently, I have a AUS -> LAX RT booked in points with a fare value of $390. Sure enough, Orbitz shows that route going for about $400 on every airline. For AUS -> SEA, I have the cost down to $321 and sure enough, United has the same route on those dates for $260.

Safe to assume WN will keep fares relatively in line with competitors then drops prices on specific flights that aren't selling well. Sometimes 5-6 weeks out, sometimes just a few days out. Tomorrow, AUS -> LAX is still as low as $160 where Orbitz is showing cheapest fare at $200.

Update: Noticed the AUS -> LAX RT non-stop fare I've booked for leisure travel dropped today to $364. Sure enough, American as the same non-stop fare for $326. Not sure who dropped first, but they are within 10% of each other. Of course, $38 is $38.

Looks like that $326 RT fare is now good most dates from June through August. I wonder if other routes have begun dropping as well.

I wonder if other routes have begun dropping as well.

Today is Tuesday, lots of changes in discount fares today.

Today is Tuesday, lots of changes in discount fares today.

True, but increases/decreases happen every day on many routes to account for demand and other airlines' fare changes.

All but one fare decrease I've jumped on for leisure trips this summer have happened on non-Tuesdays.

The point here (and this is nothing new to you, of course) is that to get the lowest fares, you've basically got to check every day, sometimes multiple times per day.