darthbimmer

Good points, worldwidedreamer. As a California based flyer I find that WN's flights to east coast cities range from around $350 RT on deeply discounted WGA fares up to about $600 OW AT. I anticipate similar pricing for West Coast - Hawaii.... after, possibly, compelling sales the first few months to build market share quickly.

N830MH

Yes, you will see a higher price. If they have more than $1,000 RT.

roundtree

I would expect BS fares north of $800 one way. As others have speculated, I can't imagine WN opening a lot of cheap WGA tickets over the long term, though they're rarely loss leaders on fares any more.

joshua362

Why wouldn't BS fares be 20-30$ over AT fares as they've always been? AT fares should be what is speculated about...

roundtree

AT may well be just $20-30 under BS for Hawaii, but that level always seems to be set by what others are charging for 1st/Business class. Honestly, it may go to $1000 one way, so AT fares will be near that too.

expert7700

my speculation: every few tuesdays and wednesdays (off peak) they will have $149 one way fares. Possibly only in one direction.

Southwest knows their bags are free and seats are free, so they price their fares according to what others non basic economy a-la-carte price adds up to.

ATLflyer2017

I can't imagine them being that cost competitive being that it cost them so much money to start everything up.

pinniped

Well, my last Alaska flights to/from KOA were $159-179 each way from the west coast. Flew out of SAN and back into OAK. That was a spring break trip. (I generally assume Hawaii doesn't really have a true off-peak season. It's always winter/spring somewhere, and that somewhere is going to want a warm tropical island where the weather is always nice.)

So it would seem like Southwest is going to have to have some fares in that range. The real question is the mix of leisure fares vs. business-traveler type fares. I have no idea how many $159's Alaska sells on a given flight, or whether they get a lot of paid F and paid high-fare Y. I do know this: it wasn't that hard to find those fares, and the flights were pretty full of what appeared to be vacationers for the most part.

Southwest may command a little premium over Alaska simply because of the pent-up demand to spend points and what I would expect would be a high rate of CP usage. In fact, the CP usage may tilt the math so much that those of us *without* an active CP are basically relegated to other airlines unless we want to subsidize the CP's. (Thankfully I have base MVP status on AS.)

tatterdema

I am thinking that some of their connecting cities might have some pretty good deals. Like they have done to cities in Mexico for example. SEA-OAK-PVR cost me $122, while the OAK-PVR leg alone was $185.

pinniped

Quite possible, since SEA and PDX are the two other cities outside California that have those cheap AS nonstops.

nsx

I would not be too surprised to see Hawaii flights priced at more than 80 points per dollar of cash fare. Just look at how many miles the other programs charge for a hard-to-find saver ticket to Hawaii.

dlaue

I agree.

And, I would not be too surprised to see restrictions on companion pass bookings for Hawaii service. If I recall correctly, when WN had its relationship with ATA for Hawaii service, it took twice the WN flights to get an award ticket as it did for a mainland ticket.

pinniped

I'll be interested to see how Southwest service affects Hawaii tourism on a macro level.

I know a lot of people in the Midwest who still think of Hawaii as a very expensive place to go. It still can be depending on when and exactly where you're trying to book a hotel, but I know a lot of people who are turned off by the flight costs. When I booked my $159 AS ticket from SAN, I also had a $109 WN ticket to get *to* SAN. But when you put MCI-KOA into a search engine, it's often $500+ one-way. A thousand-dollar R/T ticket, if not more. Most people, understandably, don't look for or want to buy two itineraries.

If Southwest decides to market this a certain way, they could re-set a norm that Midwest to Hawaii is about a $300 one-way fare is a reasonable get, including bags and a simple one-stop in SAN, LAX, or SFO. They could bring this to a huge market of people who have never been targeted with the west coast fare sales. People who didn't previously have Hawaii in their travel plans.

It'll obviously be limited by how much capacity WN decides to commit to Hawaii, but it seems to me that they could choose to commit quite a bit, run it profitably, and bring a nontrivial amount of increased travel to the islands. Perhaps even enough to statistically impact hotel rates/availability (a little bit) on Kauai or the Big Island.

LegalTender

Mid-week r/t fares from all 3 Bay Area airports reduced to $358 for March.

San Antonio Express-News speculates on destinations:

• Honolulu on Oahu
• Kahului on Maui
• Lihue on Kauai
• Kona on the Big Island

https://www.google.com/flights?lite=...s:0*0;sd:1;t:f

pinniped

Wow, they really went out on a limb with those. #hottake