73G

WN's big winter sale with fares of $49 and up appears to have started this evening. Travel through mid-Feb, no Fri/Sun, blackouts near holidays, and guessing must book by end of this Thu 10/13.

betsifur

Thanks so much - I just rebooked two flights and now have almost $300 in credit. Part of it expires on March 31, so it looks like we'll have to take an extra trip somewhere if nothing comes up before then.

B747SP

My $59 ticket just dropped to $49. Shall I take the $10 orphan credit, or keep it at $59 and earn the points?

synergistic

Take the ten bucks, 60 points aren't worth... Well, much of anything.

ursine1

No refares for me. But added a MDW-STL @2330 points each way.

Observation #1 :
STL used to be one of the consistently low-priced routings from Midway. Advertised for the lowest sale fare, often $29 or $39, and generally available for no more than $69. Despite having many options available daily, at some point in the past year or so that changed. Now it's consistently $99 - $129, and often much much more. Which makes no sense with the increased emphasis on St Louis as a "hub." This added trip is for pleasure, but when needing to book for business I often found hidden city routings cheaper. Apparently Southwest wants you to connect through St Louis, but not fly there as a destination.

Observation #2 :
Booking online or via the app remains annoyingly problematic. I kept getting nonsensical error messages on the website, so I grabbed my phone. Despite both saying there were $49 fares available for 2304 points, attempting to purchase one consistently generated the "we are unable to secure the price selected" message, and presented the 2330 points price. A difference of 26 points, or about 36 cents. So annoyingly stupid.

Carpboy823

Speaking as a Delta-heavy flier out of MSP, I can tell you that's exactly how it works for most airlines with a hub-and-spoke system. If you want to fly through the hub to another spoke, it's pretty cheap, but flying to the hub itself can be prohibitively expensive. It's fortunate that you can book one-ways easily on WN - that makes hidden city much easier when necessary. RT fare construction (and sometimes length-of-stay rules) make that almost impossible on the legacy airlines, especially Delta.

dc2

I found a flight DCA-MCO for 1325points.

birdiedouble

Just grabbed a couple of those myself. (except I'm flying out of IAD)

jm2cc

I booked a flight in Dec for $390 each. The same flight is now $287 each.
How do I make the change? Do I modify this reservation under Change and rebook the same exact flight and it will give me a credit. Or do I cancel this reservation and then rebook?
Thanks for any guidance!

B747SP

If the original $390 fare was Anytime or Business Select, you should cancel and get a refund in the original payment method, and then rebook. If the original fare was Wanna Get Away, you should just change the reservation and select the exact same flight. The excess amount will be saved in the PNR as travel fund for future use. Keep a record of the PNR (reservation confirmation number), the name of the traveler and the expiration date, so you can use it later. There is no way to find out the existence of the travel fund if you do not have the above info.

jm2cc

Thank you B747SP.

jm2cc

Just saved $108 each for total $216!!

rsteinmetz70112

Take the credit only if you are pretty sure your can use it.

I sometime end up with many small credits and use them as I can.

nsx

Use them for the security fee on points bookings. Or combine them tediously as explained in the new FT Wiki:

ursine1

But Southwest has never been a traditional "hub-and-spoke" carrier.

Shall we count this as yet another notch in the "more like a legacy every day" column?