Pretty basic booking timing question
 

I need to book tickets from PDX to LAS, nonstop. We usually fly Alaska, but Southwest is half the cost of Alaska. (And Spirit is about 1/3 less than Southwest...with luggage accounted for). Are there any sales expected to come up soon (ex. I read that SWA still releases sales on Tuesdays - true??), or should I just go ahead and book since I am pretty happy with the price. Or would any of you actually book Sprit for the most dirt cheap price?

Also, I still do have a slight nervous feeling about booking with a more discounted carrier - just in terms of reliability. Any words of reassurance? :D

Thanks in advance!

If you sometimes fly Southwest, then my recommendation is to book now while the fare is good. If there is a sale (they still start on Tuesdays, but some are good and others are lame), then you can change or cancel and rebook, and keep the fare difference as a Southwest credit for a future trip. In my experience, Spirit is barebones but OK if all works according to plan, but service recovery in case of a cancellation is hit-or-miss.

How far out are you booking?

Mind the gap.The "half-as-much" differential can evaporate.

Also, mind the Spring Break bump in March.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a1ac1b3197.png

Luggage is a big X-factor. Frontier and Spirit are a coin flip, in my opinion.

We haven't been on a Southwest flight for at least 7 years. I find them to be expensive for most of our typical routes.

Thanks! I should have mentioned our trip timing. Third week of April.

If you like the Spirit flight option, you can save the carrier interface fee (up to $23 per person per flight segment) by going to the Spirit ticket counter at an airport they serve to purchase your ticket. This is the least expensive way to travel bar none. Whether flying Spirit is worth it is a question only you can answer but I find them to be perfectly adequate when I'm paying for a ticket. This is especially true if they have a non-stop flights that work for your schedule but I've also taken connecting flights without issues. You can always book a back up flight on Southwest or another preferred carrier. Just remember to cancel the flight if you don't need it so you can keep the value of the ticket as a credit for future travel.

I don’t touch spirit…..

southwest tends to be the fare driver on routes for early bookings.

fares — I don’t see them going down for Friday and Sunday flights. Other days they can drop some between now and mid March.

southwest does fare sales on Tuesday, but I’ve seen times when fares went up from Monday to Tuesday,