Southwest Rapid Rewards - Very Tight Yield Management

I discovered the schedule extension (hours before it was publically announced). I was checking some dates in August and early September. Many of the flights had NO discounted seats available from PHX to SEA on the weekends. The WN yield management is blocking all lower fare buckets on the prime travel dates. Usually, I have been able to get the lower fares if I book on the first day of the schedule extension. Wow, I am going to be paying much higher fares!

Strongly agree. In fact in the past 2-3 months, I have noticed the Internet Fares are not available on many flights when they used to be. And the number of seats must be lower as the these fares seem to be gone 5-6 weeks ahead, when I used to be able to get them 2-3 weeks ahead.

I know more are flying now, so that is part of it. But as you said, you checked hours after schedule released and not available.

People who remember going to get a reservation for cheap fares 30 days in advance are going to be very disappointed.

I discovered this as I booked travel for Fourth of July immediately after the schedule opened up. For my evening outbound flight, none of the cheapest buckets were available, and the cheapest option was the last flight of the night in the Fun Fares bucket ($120). For the afternoon return, it was the same situation and I had to purchase a Fun Fare. Since then my afternoon return became available as $99 Promotional Fare, and my evening outbound has been rescheduled one flight earlier as that also became available in the $99 Promotional Fare bucket.

My point being that yield management appears to be loosening up as necessary closer to the date of travel.

My point being that yield management appears to be loosening up as necessary closer to the date of travel.

Good observation. It pays to check back. I assume with higher fares, fewer seats in cheap buckets, and some migration away from WN due to RR devaluation - WN will find they are not filling up as much as they thought and will open up cheaper seats as need be.

Also I always wondered if they (and others) intentionally block out lowest fares for peak flights, knowing many will book at higher fare and not check back (my guess is 75% never check after booking). Then open up cheaper seats to fill up if need be.

Good observation. It pays to check back. I assume with higher fares, fewer seats in cheap buckets, and some migration away from WN due to RR devaluation - WN will find they are not filling up as much as they thought and will open up cheaper seats as need be.

Also I always wondered if they (and others) intentionally block out lowest fares for peak flights, knowing many will book at higher fare and not check back (my guess is 75% never check after booking). Then open up cheaper seats to fill up if need be.

I've seen United do that. A week or two before the flight, I've seen them charge $300-400 for a flight segment, when WN is charging $177. Then, less than 7 days out, when they haven't sold all the seats, they drop the price to be equal to WN.


Can't blame WN for trying to get the most they can for a seat, but there is always the market pressures -- other airlines offering the same or similar service for a lower price, and people getting smart to their game and waiting to book the seat until later.

If a flight segment is $177 fully refundable and $147 with a few restrictions, what is the point of booking the $147 fare. The $177 fare will almost certainly be there and it gets to the point where its worth the $30 gamble to wait and see if a lower fare bucket opens up. Further, with WN and no change fees, if you fly two or more times a year, you can always cancel the higher fare, even if not refundable, book the lower fare and bank the difference. Only those people who fly once a year or less don't have that option.

Good observation. It pays to check back. I assume with higher fares, fewer seats in cheap buckets, and some migration away from WN due to RR devaluation - WN will find they are not filling up as much as they thought and will open up cheaper seats as need be.

Also I always wondered if they (and others) intentionally block out lowest fares for peak flights, knowing many will book at higher fare and not check back (my guess is 75% never check after booking). Then open up cheaper seats to fill up if need be.

It is an annoyance. I should not have to waste my time re-checking the itinerary every day. Nor should I have to check Ding every few hours in the remote chance that I can shave a few $ if the moon is full and my dates/times match the sale terms.

The tight yield management scheme will also hurt WN's business. Recent example: Saved $50 per person by booking UniTED to LAS instead of WN, with the bonus of avoiding OAK and getting my preferred dates and times. Even if WN drops the fare, I'm stuck with UA and won't be switching to WN. So WN fares need to be competitive at all times, not just 14 days before dday.

User tip: Assuming the fare is identical, book one-way flights instead of roundtrips. That way - if the fare drops, you simply re-book the lower-priced segment rather than the whole ticket.

User tip: Assuming the fare is identical, book one-way flights instead of roundtrips. That way - if the fare drops, you simply re-book the lower-priced segment rather than the whole ticket.

BINGO! A WN agent actually recommended this to me several years ago!

Good observation. It pays to check back. I assume with higher fares, fewer seats in cheap buckets, and some migration away from WN due to RR devaluation - WN will find they are not filling up as much as they thought and will open up cheaper seats as need be.

Also I always wondered if they (and others) intentionally block out lowest fares for peak flights, knowing many will book at higher fare and not check back (my guess is 75% never check after booking). Then open up cheaper seats to fill up if need be.

You're right on the money here! I've been advocating this for years. As a trained applied mathematician and yield management specialist, I believe that WN is doing the right thing from the business perspective. Early on, you want your yield management to be very aggressive. Why let people book at low fares early in the booking process? Then, if you are not filling up your seats, you can make some cheaper seats available 2 or 3 weeks before departure.

Of course, as a passenger, it is extremely annoying. For many years, airlines trained us to book early to get the lowest fares. I see an internet business in warning us when a flight opens up for lower fares.

I see an internet business in warning us when a flight opens up for lower fares.

Scratch that. I misinterprested what you said.

I see an internet business in warning us when a flight opens up for lower fares.

Seems to me EF could do this for the legacy airlines by just changing one or two lines of code, given that they already have a notification feature for award seats opening up..... just a question of a different bucket, exactly the same logic.

As for Southwest, of course they don't put any of their availability info into any GDS and it's a violation of the ToS to do practically anything on their website, so I doubt we'll ever see this on Southwest...

Nor should I have to check Ding every few hours in the remote chance that I can shave a few $ if the moon is full and my dates/times match the sale terms.

LOL, that's funny!! I too hate Ding. I actually uninstalled it from 2 of my 3 computers (I have it on my work computer just in case I read about some insane Ding special here on FT and only then will I go check it out). But I refuse to be turned into a monkey like SWA wants and like so many of you all have already had happen to you. :p

Seems to me EF could do this for the legacy airlines by just changing one or two lines of code, given that they already have a notification feature for award seats opening up..... just a question of a different bucket, exactly the same logic.

As for Southwest, of course they don't put any of their availability info into any GDS and it's a violation of the ToS to do practically anything on their website, so I doubt we'll ever see this on Southwest...geek.


geek, what is the EF check system. More info please... thanks.

It would be nice to have the abiliity to automate the notification of a lower fare available. If one could enter the date, flight #, Orig. and Dest, and the Fare --- and an amount lower one would want to be notified (I would not want to bother for a $5 savings), it would really be nice.

Probably not possible to do through a central computer -- but if someone could write the code, I may even send a contribution ..... ;)

Sorry, didn't mean to be obscure... ExpertFlyer.com is a service that hooks into several GDSes and can find revenue and (on many airlines) award/upgrades seats for you. They recently introduced a notification service where you register what flights you are waiting for award/upgrade seats to open up on, and they send you email when it opens up. It would be trivial to add the ability to register for specific fare buckets to open up -- that's essentially what they're already doing, for the "fare buckets" that represent upgrade and award seats.

But it doesn't work with Southwest because Southwest doesn't put their availability into into any GDS. Moreover, it is specifically against the Southwest.com ToS to write a program that provides this functionality. The less the customer knows, the better.

It's really too bad! I was beginning to fly WN quite a bit because of the ease of finding reasonably low fares and the liberal change policies. However, with tight yield management, I will just go with the airline with the lowest fare (which increasingly is NOT WN).