Southwest Rapid Rewards - Do people book safety flights on WN?

Since there's no change fee, do people book safety flights on WN and then cancel when everything goes smoothy? Seems like a weather cancelation around christmas can cause you to miss the holiday all together.

i.e. One could book a seat on the Dec 22nd and Dec 23rd? If 22nd get canceled, you still have a confirmed seat on the 23rd? When you arrive on the 22nd you go online and cancel your Dec 23rd ticket and book the credit?

I've never canceled a WN flight myself, but there doesn't seem to be a problem it. I have changed departure airports before, which didn't present any problems.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that people do, but it should be noted that booking "speculative" flights is explicitly prohibited in the Southwest Contract of Carriage.

Since there's no change fee, do people book safety flights on WN and then cancel when everything goes smoothy? Seems like a weather cancelation around christmas can cause you to miss the holiday all together.

i.e. One could book a seat on the Dec 22nd and Dec 23rd? If 22nd get canceled, you still have a confirmed seat on the 23rd? When you arrive on the 22nd you go online and cancel your Dec 23rd ticket and book the credit?

Yes, it is done.

You may not use Southwest's sites to make any speculative, fraudulent, or false reservation or any reservation in anticipation of demand. If you have made multiple reservations to one or more destinations on or about the same date, Southwest reserves the right to cancel all such reservations without notice.

The speculative booking prohibition is in the web site T&C (https://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/terms-and-conditions/?int=GFOOTER-BOTTOM-TERMS). I have not found it anywhere else.

I book consecutive day reservations on rare occasions, maybe three times a year. I do not book multiple same day reservations. I always release the extra seat when I know which day I will need. I guess I am in violation of the T&C but it has never been a problem.

The speculative booking prohibition is in the web site T&C (https://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/terms-and-conditions/?int=GFOOTER-BOTTOM-TERMS). I have not found it anywhere else.
My mistake.

I book multiple itineraries when I'm unsure of the actual travel dates. I cancel when those dates firm up.

I never knew speculative booking was against the T&C. Thanks, ink.

I book multiple itineraries when I'm unsure of the actual travel dates. I cancel when those dates firm up.

I never knew speculative booking was against the T&C. Thanks, ink.

I suspect the key phrase is "in anticipation of demand." This seems to be a reference to booking up blocks of seats anticipating a high demand for seats for a major sporting event or other high demand event. However, the non-transferability of TTF's ended the value of doing this.

I do exactly as do you. In most cases the cancellation is done weeks before the travel. I do not hide this and all reservations have my RR#. I have not been warned or questioned.

Since it is the web site T&C, there is no proscription against making the reservations using a phone agent.

But, look at what this does.


It removes a seat from the low fare bucket.
It returns a seat nearer the time of the flight putting it in a higher fare bucket.
WN gets to hold my money. With most of my cancellations, they keep the TTF until I eventually use it.
If the cancelled flight is overbooked, WN saves a VBD.
If the cancelled flight has open seats, it costs WN nothing.
WN only loses if someone wants to book the flight but can not as it is sold out. In this case they may miss a sale, but most likely the passenger will just choose another routing.

I wouldn't call it speculative, but I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to travel back on Monday after thanksgiving or not, depending on details of my wife's job, but prices were low and seemed to be moving up, so I booked the flights we wanted on SW with points, with the knowledge that I could cancel/change easily. In that situation, it wouldn't have made sense to book a flight on Delta/Airtran because of the change fees (ATL-HOU trip, so it most likely would have been one of those 3 airlines for me). If things changed, then I would have cancelled the flights and then booked whatever made sense.

Not really speculative, but utilizing the increased flexibility or an example where the flexibility favors purchasing SW flights.

I've been known to do it before or during irregular operations, since WN's IRROPS approach is really bad. If I'm worried about my morning flight the next day, I may buy the last flight of the next evening, or if I'm worried about an evening flight I may buy the 6am flight the next day.

But this happens maybe once a year. And if WN would let IRROPS-affected A+ members board after A60 as a matter of written policy, I'd never have to do it.

During the big DC snowstorm in January 2011, I knew there was no way that WN would ever fly my evening flight, and just bought the late morning flight the next day. It took WN several hours to cancel my original flight, meanwhile I was happily holding a BS boarding pass.

All of the time.

Every time theres a sale Ill book 3 or 4 trips over a month's span to lock in the price and then cancel most/all of them as I find out what my schedule looks like closer to time, but I am booking with points so its no skin off my back.

I get that this should be frowned upon by WN and am assuming some type of action is probably going to remedy this in the not too distant future.