Originally Posted by
MSP_Monopoly
Not sure what is going on here but I’ve been checking flights this morning for December 14th from LAS to BNA one way. The Southwest website and app only show these expensive fares and nothing in the basic bucket.
But when I search it through Google flights cheaper flights appear and routings appear that DO NOT show as options on Southwest’s site. Pasted examples below. When you click through to purchase the $175 flight from Google it takes you to the Southwest purchase page and the price sticks.
Not sure if this is common/temporary glitch while Southwest does fare maintenance on their site?
It's not unusual for the airline websites to do a more limited fare search than other fare search sites. So, no, not actually a "glitch". In this case, it's looks like WN website is limiting the search to 26 or so options, while a Google Flights search is returning 74 options. WN allows domestic layovers up to 8 hours (the big legacy 3 only allow 4 hours), which opens up many potential connecting options. So basically, WN search is not finding cheapest available flight options for which there is inventory open. Even when you sort by price on WN website, it's just sorting by those 26 options and not performing a new search to actually find cheapest options.
ITA Matrix can do extremely exhaustive searches if you use advanced controls to specify a particular carrier and I use it from time-to-time to find options not showing on legacy airline sites. It's particularly useful for international fare searches where the legacies allow for layovers of up to 24 hours. However, ITA Matrix does not support WN fare searches.