joshua362

If you booked round trips where the return leg was flown in 2018, would both the points AND the 2 segments count towards 2018's tally? People should remember this trick if so.

nsx

If that were the case we would have heard complaints over the years that people were missing out on A-list because their 25th segment was the outbound half of a round trip finishing the following year. Not one such post has been seen here.

lougord99

Certainly California only. I checked several routes out of MDW on several dates and nothing made me book a speculative flight. ( I will be flying in November, but just not sure when. If the fares were good, I would make several speculative bookings and attempt to make them work)

rsteinmetz70112

I'd be very happy if Southwest revived a couple of Airtran Elite perks;

• A guaranteed seat on any flight, even if it requires bumping another passenger. BS fare on sold out flights with BS perks.
  
• A space available confirmed seat on a same day flight for $25.00.

I never used the first and seldom used the latter in hundreds of flights but it was nice to know they were there.

Both would be low cost, high value perks.

danielonn

I had a mileage ticket booked to Albuquerque from SJC for January leaving on a Tuesday. I saw the flight for $77 and called Southwest to cancel the award booking and rebooked it. The agent booked me for $68 one way. I already have my Delta ticket booked back from ABQ via SLC in Comfort+ and I get free bags due to the AMEX Delta Card or else I would have booked the return on Southwest.

After my Phoenix trip and this one I will have around 9500 miles to apply to a more expensive ticket. For $68 it was a no brainer to cancel that and book the new ticket at the low price and still fly on the same flights as I had on my award booking.

So its a major win for WN!!!!!!! In addition I have 4 drink certificates that will expire at the end of January 2018 so I will use 2 on my PHX R/T and the other 2 for my 2 ABQ Flights via PHX.

I am glad I looked up the sales and it worked for me. Under this pricing you can't even drive to LA from San Jose for $70ish eac way let alone San Jose to ABQ. If you book 4 people on a $153-$173 r/t fare you would do very well.

I leave SJC at 6:30 AM connecting via PHX arriving ABQ at 11:35 AM one of the quickest flights to ABQ as others were long connecting times.

synergistic

Just an FYI, points are typically more valuable on cheaper flights than they are on more expensive flights - it has to do with what proportion of the fare paid is base fare vs taxes. Still, glad you're happy with the result.

anc-ord772

Wow, I was able to snag LAX-SMF for $29. Unreal in 2017. I hope our AP folks do a double take

danielonn

Thanks for this I will keep it in mind.

jmw

I agree with this, but I would always use any travel funds/vouchers with expiration dates before points even if the expiration is a whole year away. It's even more critical to burn them ASAP if the funds are tied to a specific person.

The $29 sale was a great opportunity to burn down Southwest funny money including small balances like $5.60. Two small balances per flight pays for a good chunk of the total one-way fare.

SanDiego1K

Thanks to the help I was given in this thread, I flew 4 flights yesterday. I rebooked two paid flights that are upcoming. Yesterday was easy peasy. I flew:

SAN - SJC - met another FTer at SJC who flew on with me. Had a great time visiting.
SJC - BUR - stepped off flight and used A list status to get back on same plane returning to SJC; initially had allowed buffer time and was on the next later flight
BUR-SJC - because I arrived in SJC an hour earlier that initially scheduled, used A list status and got on 2nd earlier flight to San Diego. Said good bye to FTer.
SJC - SAN - arrived two hours earlier than initially scheduled

Each flight was wide open and no one was sitting in middle seats. My first flight left at 10am and I returned at 5pm.

I didn't earn many points, just 208 for $29 flight between SAN and SJC and 200 points for $27 flight between SJC and BUR. But it wasn't about the points, it was about retaining the A list status which I am enjoying. I haven't done a mileage (segment) run in many years but this one was worth getting back in the game.

synergistic

I unfortunately had to finish my challenge in September, so I missed out on these incredibly cheap runs - I paid $41 and $39 for my runs, plus some $49 legs that actually took me places I wanted to go. I'm glad your flights went smoothly.

Also glad to hear you didn't have any trouble with them cancelling one of your SJC-XXX legs - I ended up having the same experience, despite some trouble with autocancellations on an earlier planned segment run.

nsx

Congratulations on getting the best possible value out of Southwest's lowest prices 20+ years. Talk about leading by example!

SanDiego1K

The first two flights posted within a day. The returns shown above, where I jumped on earlier flights, have not posted. Will they? Or do I need to call/write? And if so, whom do I contact?

SanDiego1K

I've called Southwest. All is well. Even though it is non obvious to me, each post is actually for all flights associated with the PNR. Since I booked two RTs, there are 2 entries for the 4 segments.

jeffandnicole

Non-California flights:

PHL-MCO: $27 each way, or 857 points, for scattered dates in November, as well as on PHL-MCO only in January and February, 2018.