It's official! The clickable BNA sale graphic on the southwest.com home page now takes you to the ABQ sale offer!

From the East Coast, I'm seeing some "real" half-price deals to ABQ. Like there's a fare from PHL that's only $43. Almost impossible to use, however -- at least efficiently -- as availability at the cheapo prices is tight.

Personally, I'm waiting to see the matches from the other airlines (they've been matching these sales by the PM). The more choices, the merrier, and a 2000 mile flight on a legacy carrier will yield better ff benefits.

Nice find, iahphx! From here the undiscounted ABQ fare "only" went up from $79 to $121. By comparison, yesterday's BNA fare went up from $79 to $140 after the code went live, meaning "50% off" yielded savings of $9.

You can now get better fares from PHL to some jumping off points than you could get during the PHL sale. $43 to DEN or AUS ^, for example, versus $59.50 and $66.50 the other day.

Ah, I forgot about the "hidden city" thing (who would think this would be useful on WN?). You have to buy these fares roundtrip though, right? But I recall the returns are cancellable, so if you're willing to hold a credit, it would work, right?

I still think the practice of raising the fares and then having a half-off sale is detestable. I mean, these guys are championing themselves as being the "friend of the consumer" yet resorting to a marketing ploy that is slimy, at best. They could easily avoid this embarrassment/dishonesty by simply having a "blowout sale" instead of a "half price sale." We can handle the truth -- it's better than being lied to. I would suggest the Southwest lurkers owe us all an apology, but I suspect they won't, for fear of exposing their employer to consumer fraud liability.

I never remember seeing anyone from southwest claim to be a "champion of the consumer", they're a business. and by no means is this consumer fraud, there's no bait and switch or anything illegal. they're offering a discount off some base price. hotels do this be saying a certain discount is off the rack rate instead of the lowest price so the value may not be as great as it seems, but the consumer likes it and in the end they get what's advertised. heck, even stores valued for their social responsibility like costco do this - when the coupons the mail out are active, the price on some of those goods can be higher than what it was the week before. for the consumer, they think its a bargin when in fact it may not be.

Southwest's strategy is geared towards taking advantage of people's behavior. Building the idea of scarcity is a big one. The no assigned seats gets people boarded faster becasue people 1) line up early and 2) rush down the jetway to get their chosen seat. The Ding specials also are "limited time" items. In this case, running these 1 day sales are a way to get people to book travel sooner to, at least from the recent Dings I've seen, locations that haven't had the desired amount of traffic.

I wouldn't be so sure they their actions here are legal. Stores do get in trouble in some states for raising prices immediately before a sale and then advertising "half off." There might be some federal preemption, but the Feds can be harsh on deceptive airline fares, too. This sale truly is deceptive and entirely unnecessary. They could easily have built up the same "excitement" by having a one-day "blow-out" sale from the same destinations. If I were running the airline and my marketing guys did this, there would be hell to pay. I think it's that bad.

Meanwhile, right on schedule, UA and AA have matched most of today's ABQ fares and are offering generally better inventory.

It's a hat trick for Day Four! But can't mix co-terminals.

Promo codes: LUVSFO, LUVOAK, LUVSJC.

IIRC, this is the first time any co-terminal airport has participated in a "50% off" sale.

Oops, I spoke too soon. There are some circumstances that do permit co-terminals. (Of course on the web site you can only book RTs with co-terminals if you originate at one; you cannot use the website to book a flight to co-terminal A with a return from co-terminal B.) The key is to use the promo code for your originating airport when you want to return to a different airport that is a co-terminal.

(I need to dig through my PMs to see what SWAV told me last year about whether RSAs "should" be able to book "web only" specials like this while using the co-terminal rule. If anyone knows, feel free to chime in.)

Side note: I sure was disappointed upon seeing that the travel by deadline for these deals was before LGA and BOS service begin. It's that much longer I have to wonder whether or not LGA is a co-terminal for ISP, and whether BOS will simply be added to the PVD/MHT grouping or whether the changes there will be more involved than that.

[Yikes, just noticed this is still sitting here in "Preview Post" mode. I thought I had submitted it about an hour ago. Mea culpa!!]

Wow! day 4 is great. Will any one airline match?

I'm sure UA will match this one....

Usually when will they match?
I am waiting to book a ticket

Probably once someone at UA's HDQ in Chicago wakes up. Mid-morning maybe?

FWIW, I might wait on the intra-CA routes. They've been sub-$40 (LAX-SFO) the past few days. Now they're in the $80 range. If there's a pattern to this "sale," I bet you'll see the fares drop again come 2 am CDT Tuesday.

there's been no "raising of the prices then give a discount" going on. all the prices are the same before the sale, during the sale, and will be the same after the sale. the pricing structure of airline seats follows some basic economic rules, supply and demand. the more seats there are, the lower the price. as seats sell and there are fewer seats left, the price goes up. when there is a 50 percent off sale, the seats sell quickly, so the price goes up faster.

I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

It would be like me lecturing on nuclear physics.