Taking Advantage Of Southwest Airlines’ Single-Way Fares
Once I started flying to Las Vegas instead of driving from L.A., it did not take me long to figure out this neat little trick utilizing Southwest Airlines’ single-fare booking service.
Unlike many other airlines, with Southwest you book your trip each way – departure and then return – and you’re given a list of different prices for each flight. And here’s PubClub.com’s tip:
Book The Lowest Fare To Vegas And The Fully Fundable Flight On The Return.
The reason for this is simple. You know when you’re going to leave, so there’s no point in paying extra for the bigger fare. Book the cheapest flight they offer on your departure date.
On the return, however, book the fully refundable flight. (To Los Angeles, this is usually just $50 or less than the cheapest fare). Why? Well because once you get to Vegas, you don’t always leave when you planned – the city has a way of sucking you into it.
No need to wake up hungover in the hotel room on a Sunday morning, trying to stuff all your crap that’s scattered all over the hotel room into your suitcase, scramble with others in your group to get your act together and get to the airport, only to roll over and say “we’ll never make it.”
Simply call Southwest and change the flight. With an unrestricted ticket, there no fare change and you can change it as often as you want to do it.
I put this to the test on one trip to Vegas and it worked perfectly. I was with two friends – one of whom took my advice and another who did not – and we were scheduled to leave at 2 in the afternoon on a Sunday.
We started the day with the great Vegas champagne brunch, then decided to pop over to Margaritaville for a final drink before heading to the airport.
Well, you can imagine what happened next – we wound up meeting some fun party people and ordered another drink. We looked at our watches and said “we”ll never make it,” so two of us called Southwest to get on the next flight (there’s one every hour to L.A., as well as other close cities such as San Jose and Phoenix).
The other friend – who has booked his flights on United for some reason – had no choice but to do the same. He was charged a $35 change fee.
Well, one thing led to another and we wound up changing the flight no less than half a dozen times. In fact, we wound up grabbing a hotel room and staying the night! My one friend and I were able to make all the changes at no charge, while it cost the other friend about $150.
This only reinforced my philosophy and you should do it, too, for Las Vegas is not a place that easily lets go of its visitors. If you don’t fly Southwest, check out the other airlines’ policy for booking separate departures and returns and look for the fully-refundable return.
Cheers!
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