KAYLI'S DAD
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2008
Im curious what people think is the best time to book southwest flights to get the best price. We are going spring break in march and I know its a popular time but dont know if prices will go down.
For SW book when you see a price you are comfortable paying and then check back for price drops. At least then you can rebook and have the opportunity to save points or spend those travel funds on another fun trip. (And if you can't use the funds within the year, then at least you were comfortable with the price to begin with)
Popular days, times, routes may only go up as seats sell or they could have price drops as sales come out. It's really hard to predict. Sometimes just being cheap makes a route popular and it doesn't really change as you might expect. If it's a less popular day, time or route I usually see the best pricing about 6 weeks out. But if you're going spring break I would not wait until then to book. Your cheapest options will usually be Tue, Wed, or Thu flights.
We fly a lot from Milwaukee to LaGuardia and we always find seats on sale there and back, except sunday nites when a lot of Eastern kids are going back to college at Marquette or UW Madison. But MIlwaukee to Orlando, we book the minute prices come out. I do not think fairs ever go below $150 one way. I usually check every Tuesday and prices are already climbing From what we paid.The best time to book is the first day that tickets are for sale. Just like Disney cruises. The mythical prices drops never occur. Prices only increase.
I used to think that but have been proven wrong. I have a trip booked for next week that the price went down twice (last one was a couple of weeks ago) since I booked when dates opened up. And for our trip in May the dates opened up a few days ago, prices went from $192 on opening day to $99 3 days later. I don't think it will go any lower, but I knew the 192 would not stick. I am also eyeing another flight (different airports but in May as well) that are at $176, I bet those go down to 120's or 115 which is their usual price.The best time to book is the first day that tickets are for sale. Just like Disney cruises. The mythical prices drops never occur. Prices only increase.
It all depends on what your alternates are. What would you do if the prices don't go down/stay the same? Is that better or worse than what you're seeing now? Sometimes they may only have 2 seats at the cheap price so you'd have to pay higher for the other 2 anyway. (I assume you know about splitting a reservation to get the cheap seats, as otherwise all 4 would be ticketed at the higher fare bucket if kept together in that case) So if your alternative options aren't any worse the longer you wait, you could gamble. For us, our worse case scenario, other than not going, is we drive. Since that cost doesn't really change much we can usually take the gamble to wait it out.Southwest flights just opened up for our dates but they are SO high. I heard about waiting till 6 weeks out but that makes me so nervous booking for a group of 4 with kids. Should only people booking 1 or two seats wait till this close?
Do they credit you automatically?I booked our Thanksgiving flights when they were released and I have now received 4 different credits as they just keep going down. Even yesterday I got a credit.
I'm waiting to book spring break flights until next year.
Do they credit you automatically?
Im curious what people think is the best time to book southwest flights to get the best price. We are going spring break in march and I know its a popular time but dont know if prices will go down.
Thanks for this tip. I thought that the points prices don’t fluctuate.If you're using points, I'd book as soon as they're released. I found for our airport/routes, it's almost always cheapest when they first release the dates. But it's no biggie because we use points, so we can just get the points refunded if the fare drops.