nsx

When planning travel for a family member this week I encountered a surprise. We were looking for a ticket from SFO or OAK to SEA. The outbound was less than 7 days out but the return was more than 7 days in the future.

Competitors offer attractive fares from SFO to SEA, albeit with hefty change fees and some baggage fees. Southwest essentially matches the fares out of SFO, but the flights are absurd: a 5-hour to 8-hour trip connecting in PHX? Really? Who would buy that?

Southwest sells non-stops from OAK to SEA, but these are priced at full Anytime fare less than 7 days out. That's simply not competitive. Points redemption for an Anytime fare is confiscatory, making a second strike against choosing Southwest for this trip for a non-frequent traveler.

We bought a ticket on VX with a return on WN using RR points. We almost bought the VX ticket for that one too, since the fare was the same and the seat comfort is so superior.


IMHO Southwest needs to overhaul its yield management to routinely offer competitive WGA fares up to a day or two before travel. The days when Southwest could afford to be much cheaper or much more expensive than the competition are over.

As a side note, Southwest needs to add substantial customer value to Ding! or else just take it out behind the hangar and shoot it. The original Ding! concept of short-notice deeply discounted fares had value, but it hasn't been used in far too long.

Nevada1K

I concur with your underlying premise that WN is no longer as competitive as they once were (in many ways).

I think whether they do/do not offer WGA fares less than 7 days out is based on city pairs, rather than an across-the-board policy; I'm thinking it is also likely based on loads as well.

I checked two of my recent city pairs for WGA fares for this week: LAS-LAX is showing WGA fares for Wednesday-Thursday (2-3 days out) which are $15 to $66 less than Anytime fares. For LAS-TUL, again WGA is available 2-3 days in advance, but only $15 less than Anytime fares.

SDCA

The ones that look at the cheaper price flights and didn't bother to look where it's connecting or direct(stopping without changing planes).

I hear that a lot at stopping point(through flight) from other passengers telling crew they didn't know there is a stop on their flight from Origin to Destination.

mke9499

I'm in total agreement with your comments. I continue to explain to friends and associates that WN travel generally needs to be booked with a minimum of seven days notice, if at all possible, for more competitive fares, and that 14 and 21 days advance bookings yield even more competitive fares.

I recently booked short-notice travel and ended up using half of a standard award for the outbound, instead of paying for a one-way which priced out in the neighborhood of $440-$500. If I had booked a few weeks in advance, the OW fare on that same flight would have been less than $150.

FL used to have extremely aggressive walk-up fares, which were great for short-notice bookings and for filling seats. Now, the Southwest-effect has overtaken their fares, which mirror those of WN, including for bookings made with fewer than seven days notice.

Certain routes that I fly on a regular basis often have weak loads; why not
offer WGA fares with fewer than seven-day notice on routes that are weak, instead of stating that WGA fares are just not available on short notice. Is it not better fill seats that might otherwise go unsold?

sdsearch

They do sometimes offer last minute WGA fares:
I bought the above ticket half a day before the flight, on 12/26 last year. (I'd found out earlier that day that my AA flight HSV-DFW-LAX had been cancelled due to weather at DFW, and AA couldn't rebook me for that same day by then, so I went on a whim to the Southwest website and saw that they still had WGA fares for that night for BNA-LAX, so I grabbed one with points, changed my rental return to BNA instead of HSV, and got home the day I needed to.)

I forget how to turn WGA points into equilvalent dollars to see what the cash fare must've been. I can tell it wasn't super-cheap, but the point is it was still WGA (and thus the "nicer" WGA multiplier for points redemption).

(BNA = Nashville TN, HSV = Huntsville AL, just over 2 hours apart by car)

expert7700

I've gotten super-cheap same day WGA fares. Definitely varies by airport and route.

PIT-MCO same day for $90.
BUF-DEN same day for $144.

Often the 1 or 2-stop routes are cheap and the nonstops are $400-600

rsteinmetz70112

Southwest is definitely making far more serious mistakes than offering low last minute fares.
Most involve abandoning the long held expectations of their (formerly) loyal customers.

djp98374

Southwest as always been like this....you need to book prior to 7 days otherwise fares will jump. It's their pricing model.

Southwest tends to cater to more infrequent travelers so they push fare sales earlier for flights.

Southwest doesn't have full service from SFO which is why you need to route through PHX. Southwest also has dropped short haul flights.

For another poster 21,000 pts =$350 fare

Dunbar

I buy a lot of WN tickets out of LAX under 7 days out (often times 2-3 days out) and there are no shortage of WGA fares. Last year flying out of ONT I found AT fares almost nonexistent under 7 days out. I think the biggest difference compared to years ago is that AT fares for short haul flights have gone up 2X+. I can remember when you could buy an anytime fare from ONT-PHX for around $200 the day before the flight.

toomanybooks

Divide by 60.

jb3t

Agree with OP with respect the WN is losing out on the last minute traveler. However, I do often see last minute WGA fares on some flights. I'm not sure what their model for this is though. I fly MHT-BWI regularly and rarely see them, but those flights are always jammed. Perhaps they go by route or % that plane is filled.

For me, as a business traveler, we now are supposed to take the "cheapest" (with about $50 wiggle room) airfare. This often leaves WN out.

rove312

That gives you the fare before the various government fees are added. I'm looking at a points fare of 9,660, which translates to $172 on a non-stop, or $182 or $183 with a connection ($1 more if there's an AirTran segment, what's up with that?).

bpe

I have seen WGA fares for OAK-SEA and vice versa the day before the flight, so they do exist (or at least they used to). This thread has a screenshot of that as well as other WGA debates.
(granted, that thread was a year ago, but I've seen other last minute WGA fares this year as well)

Beckles

I was looking for a place to post my recent experience without starting a new thread, and this thought from the original post is the heart of what I wanted to say ...
First, I'd like to start with something I've said about others, to believe that any armchair executive here on FT can do a better job of running WN than the folks who have actually run WN more successfully than any other US airline for over thirty years now is difficult to believe ... but it's still fun for us to pretend we can, isn't it?

Now, my story ... I flew MCO-MCI this Tuesday evening on Southwest, I had booked our award tickets a while ago, and rebooked when the fare was lowered due to a sale even, there are great things about Southwest for sure!

Now, what I'm about to say is not a complaint, but rather what I think is an interesting observation. For our flight I had booked four seats, one for me, my wife, and our 21 month old twins. An hour before flight time I approached the gate to inquire about availability to see if we could cancel our childrens' seats based on discussions in this thread, the agent replied that the flight was booked to 55, so he gladly added our kids as lap children and I cancelled their tickets online.

Now, what is interesting about this for days prior to our flight and up to flight time Southwest only offered Anytime and BS fares on our flight, no WGA, but WGA was offered on connecting flights. So, WN does have WGA fares published for MCO-MCI good up until the day of departure but either one of two things yield management wise was occurring:

1) Those WGA fares are not valid on non-stop flights; or
2) WN does not make low fare buckets available on (a few/some/many/all) non-stop flights regardless of loads.

This certainly seems like a mistake on WN's part because I am sure some people are still opting to fly close in and are just booking connecting flights instead of the relatively empty non-stop flight they could take.

ursine1

Highly successful managers realize that it often takes someone with an outside viewpoint to see that actions being taken may be in the wrong direction for the long-term health of a company, and value such input greatly.