sageblue

I'm ramping up for Thursday along with everyone else: I'm planning on going PHL-LAS on 12/19, LAS-SEA on 12/23, and SEA-PHL on 12/28, the Sunday after Christmas. Two questions:

I assume that I will be able to find availability to use an RR credit for the PHL-LAS leg -- do you think I have any sort of shot on SEA-PHL? (LAS-SEA will likely not be worth using a credit since it will be the cheapest leg) Since that date is a blackout date for the Freedom Award, I'm sort of doubting it.

In that case, do you think that that Sunday will be a sufficiently harried travel day that I might have a chance to VDB on the last flight out of SEA? I would think that usually the Sunday following Christmas would be busy, but this year it seems so late, and I also wonder how many people will be traveling this year.

Thanks for any thoughts you may have on this, and good luck Thursday!

ftnoob

Regarding PHL-LAS on 12/19, how flexible are you regarding flight times, and are you aiming for a non-stop? There may be seats that day but not necessarily on the most desirable fights.

I'd put low odds on finding SEA-PHL award seats on Sunday 12/28, and high odds on the last flight of the day being full but with no VDBs required. Others with more experience may have a better crystal ball, though.

khtc

Opinions wanted:

No Standard Awards available for this trip:

BWI-Tampa
Depart Dec 22
Return Dec 29

Is it safe to assume that if they are not available now that they will not become available?

Should I convert to Freedom Awards now and snag the seats or is there any chance that they'll make Standard Awards available?

Thanks.

ftnoob

SAPMAN

I booked RNO - MDW for 24 Dec about 10 days ago with Standard Award. I was unable to book on line despite it showing available. Thought I was shut out. Then called WN Reserv. and they did it! But the reservation will not show in my WN Web Site as not booked on line even though I did, of course with Award, give them my RR#. WN needs to change this.

ftnoob

FCfree

I'm kind of disappointed by Southwest and what I found for Christmas tickets. Prices were very high. United's raw price (before bag fees) was less than Southwest. When adding in the bag fees, they were very comparible. What was as $250 r/t trip (DEN-STL-DEN) last year is like $447 this year. United had award availability for what I needed, Southwest did not. With the risk of United going under, I decided to burn some United miles.

Pre-shipping some stuff, including clothes, via FedEx ground is an option for me in this case to work around some of the United bag fees.

LAS-DEN on New Year's Day is $185 on Southwest as I write this, only $79 for Frontier. Frontier's time is just slightly better for me (not enough to be a deciding factor, but price + time both go to Frontier in this case).

The sad part is that now I am locked in to United and Frontier and should Southwest decide to reduce the price, I can't change to them, thanks to those darn change fees at United and Frontier.

I don't like having to go with UA and F9 (hope they are both still in business come December/January), but for the cost difference, its going to have to be.

It also puts my A-list in jepordy, but I'm not going to become an A-list status chaser. Status chasing at UA was annoying and expensive. I'll just do 24-hour check-in if it comes to that.

SAPMAN

I was looking for a flight for 24 Dec, and the RR screen showed Available for a number of flights (I was stunned as I expect none for that date). I clicked on the button and I got some error message (cannot remember exactly what) about not being able to book. So I called WN Resrv. (with screen on my PC still on) - and they looked it up and told me it was available, so I booked it. Only issue is the flight does not show up on My Itineries screen as not booked "on line". But Award was used. So my advise, if Standard Award button does not say "unavailable", call Reserv.

ftnoob

Beckles

Flight arrival/departure/connection times should never be considered a positive factor when booking on any other airline than WN more than three months out. Would you be willing to bet that your Frontier scheduled arrival and departure time will not be changed in the next 5-1/2 months? One advantage to WN is that if you book a ticket on them, there's a 99.99% chance that WN will not change the schedule ... the same can not be said of any other airline.

BTW, I'm certainly not saying you're wrong in booking Frontier for half the price, that's a great buy, but just pointing out that I would not give them credit for having better times when I would be willing to bet the times will change!

SWAVictor

ftnoob - I see we are becoming quick acquaintances!

I wanted to take a moment to explain the discrepancies that you have noticed with Southwest SeatFinder and Southwest Shortcut.

The Technology currently behind these products uses an availability command that looks at all availablity in a city pair (eg: dal - hou) for a month at a time. This command does not go to the specific flight level, it is just a "snapshot" (although mostly "real time" of what fare classes are available between those 2 cities each day for 30 days.

The issues that we encounter with these two products are:

1. If a fare is ONLY valid on nonstop flights - the special 30 day availability call does not seperate the nonstops from the direct and connecting flights. So the calendar would show a fare available, because that fare class is availble - but when you go to book it shows unavailable because the fare class was only valid on a direct or connection - but the fare isn't valid on those flights. To try to eliminate that confusion, Southwest Shortcut currently does not display any fares that are only valid on nonstop flights.
However, those nonstop only fares are typically lower than what is displayed on the calendar, so in those cases - you should be pleasantly surprised with a lower fare when you go to book. (at least its better than being shown a low fare on the calendar that you can't find when its time to book)

2. The website sells only "published, scheduled service". For complicated reasons that I won't get into here - our reservation system sometimes includes connections that are not considered "published, scheduled service". Remember that special 30 day availability command? Well, that command sees the flights that are not published service and includes them in the results that show up on the calendar. Then, when you go to book those seats (either standard award, or at a specific price on paid tickets) that flight that had the right fare class available, happens to be the one that is not "published, scheduled" so it is not available for purchase on the website.

This is why when you call in to Reservations, they are able to find a seat and book you. Perhaps you have noticed that they offered you a seat on a flight connection that isn't even showing up online?

So, if the calendar shows either a standard award available and when you try to book its not there . . .it is definately worth a call to reservations. The calendar is most likely right (of course if there is just one seat, it could sell out before you get an agent on the phone)

As far as I am aware, these 2 scenarios are the only issues that Shorcut and SeatFinder are suffering from - and we are working to resolve both of these issues as soon as we possibly can. I promise that we didn't build these tools with the anticipation of upsetting Customers or being misleading in any way. We really want them to be useful tools that help our Customers to plan their travel.

These issues were found after the tools were already out to the public - and really these 2 issues should be the exception rather than the rule. For the most part I think these tools are fairly accurate.

nsx

Wow, I never would have guessed. Thanks for the great hint. Maybe someone can add it to the FAQ?

Welcome to FT, SWAVictor! Congratulations on having an industry-leading web site. We'll try to let you know whenever we see opportunities to tweak it here and there.

ftnoob

khtc

Time to convert!




OK, so now I decide that I better convert to Freedom Awards and grab my tickets. Since some of my standard awards are going to expire before December, I'll have to pay the $50 fee to make the Freedom Awards valid for 12 months. No big deal - I've got a handful of SWA giftcards that I bought as part of the December RR credit bonus deal.

Imagine my surprise to learn that you can't use SWA giftcards to pay for the $50 conversion fee. What kind of c*ap is that? Why would this LUV-ly airline prohibit the use of the own giftcard(s) to pay for a fee that they impose?

"You must have a credit card to pay for your Freedom Award conversion with new expiration date option. Ticketless TravelSM Funds, Southwest LUV Vouchers, and southwestgiftcardsTM can only be applied toward flight purchases and may not be used to pay for Freedom Award conversions."

My apologies if this has been discussed/debated before but I am certainly not feeling the LUV now.

SWABrian - any official position on the reasons behind this policy?

pitflyer

Unfortunately a lot of companies have weird restrictions like that on gift cards. For example, I got an award on American Airlines and bought an AA giftcard to pay for the considerable international taxes and award fees, and when I went to pay, they said nope, can't .. just because. I was stuck with that giftcard for a long while after that, too.