shakeey28

southwest finally put their flights out for jan and feb 2017 a couple weeks ago. when i tried to book the wanna get away it was showing sold out. the other fares are all okay but are 300-400 more. ive never come across this before and ive been flying southwest a long time. i called southwest and was told the cheaper fares are sold out because like 7 people people already booked it at the lower price. my question in which i couldn't get an answer from them is will they ever open up the wanna getaway tickets again for this flight. im hoping someone out there has come across this before. thank you

Yoshi212

You don't say what route this is for. Could there be a festival or event that draws people annually as the people that go each year often book asap. When going for the lowest fares you can get lucky or just be too late.

I don't fly WN but some airlines do return lower fare buckets to market. Some are faster about it and others are slower. Some release different/more of a fare bucket at different times. Keep looking or book what you think is a good deal.

ursine1

Although sometimes additional fare buckets do open as the date draws closer, I suspect with a ton of 50% off codes out there, all of which expire in January, we will be seeing higher prices overall and tight availability for November through January.

spongenotbob

Excellent point.

Gave away too many 50% coupons? No problem - just double the price!

Now that's some big-dollar MBA thinking right there.

thumbelina

last year sold out flights months before during that time period(if its the week before/after the first Sunday in February) were to/then from the Superbowl city San Jose--I started a thread here wondering why...of course I am female and not a football fan...so my post was sneared as showing gross ignorance (which it did, but for which I was not a bit apologetic)

nsx

They were not sold out, but discounted fares were not offered. In that case normal discounts did eventually appear on all dates and nearly all times. Southwest was far too aggressive in blacking out discounts far in advance. They did the same thing with summer fares this year. Maybe they are slow learners.

bgtees

I just came here to post the same question. Looking to book 2 round trip tickets from Houston to New Orleans in February. Outbound tickets are fine, but there is absolutely zero Wanna Get Away tickets available for the return flights. I've never seen anything like it for SW. It's Mardis Gras time, so I expected the tickets to go fast, but they must have limited the number of WGA fares for them to have *all* sold out so early.

Edit - I just spot checked a number of other cities into New Orleans and it looks like Wanna Get Away tickets are simply not available (or already sold out) for the weekend of Feb. 24th through the middle of the following week. May have to fly in on SW and out on United (shudder) or Spirit (double shudder).

nsx

Welcom to FT, bgtees!

You can be pretty sure WGA fares were never offered. You can also be pretty sure WGA fares will eventually be offered. See this thread for a recent example of what happens when Southwest gets too greedy on fares for peak travel periods. Short version: many, many customers buy tickets on other carriers or make other plans, leaving Southwest's planes quite empty.

bgtees

Interesting - thank you for the reply and link, very helpful.

nineworldseries

For Mardi Gras time at MSY? I certainly wouldn't take this bet.

bgtees

I purchased airfare October 2015 (also HOU - MSY) for approximately the same dates during this year's Mardis Gras and there were still plenty of WGA tickets available then. That's why I was so surprised that they were completely sold out when booking 2 months earlier for Mardis Gras 2017.