Well, for many years WN was actually cheaper than the legacies. I flew them almost exclusively in college. They had the only direct SAT-TPA flight of any airline and it was still cheaper than connecting flights on both CO... RIP or DL. But at some point WN management realized they had the reputation of being low cost, so why not raise prices and see if people noticed. Their decision to refuse to participate in Google flights and other OTAs hides their fares, so people still think WN is low cost when in reality many times it isn't, but most of them are too lazy to do 2 searches to find out the truth.

Any trip I take I price via Google Flights and Southwest. Out of Houston, it is very rare that I find a flight that is cheaper on WN. If it is cheaper, it's because it requires a stop in DAL or ATL and there is usually a direct UA flight that is marginally more expensive. In that case I'll fly UA. Once in the past 3-4 years I've found a flight routing on WN out of HOU that was non-stop, cheaper than UA, and fit my time table. So I booked it and am flying it in June.

But as I mentioned on a previous page, the best thing about WN flying international routes from HOU is it has had a huge effect on lowering UA's fares from IAH. In December I went to Mexico on UA, same price as WN, and got CPU'd in both directions. Win Win.