Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - The Art of the Southwest Sale
Southwest Airlines is known for running frequent sales on airfares, making it one of the best low-cost carriers for finding deals. But scoring a dirt cheap Southwest flight takes some strategy. Understanding the nuances of Southwest's sales system can help you snag those coveted $49 fares and other hot deals.
The first thing to know is that Southwest sales are not predictable. They can happen at any time of year and often target specific travel windows 2-3 months out. Sign up for Southwest email alerts to stay on top of upcoming promotions. Check their website frequently too - flash sales are common but not always emailed out.
When a Southwest sale hits, act fast. The lowest fares get scooped up quickly. But don't just book the first cheap flight you see. Prices can fluctuate during the sale period, with new flight deals popping up daily. Keep monitoring and modifying your search over the sale timeframe.
Expanding your airport and date options boosts your odds of scoring a promo fare. Look at flying into and out of multiple area airports, including smaller regional ones. Most sales require midweek travel, but will include some weekend dates too. Consider flying on less popular days like Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Nonstop flights sell out fastest, so give some thought to connections. The price difference is usually minimal and can open up more possibilities. But carefully weigh the pros and cons of a layover - you don't want to end up with crazy long connection times.
Be flexible with departure and return dates too. Traveling a day earlier or later can reveal big savings. The key is identifying dates with lots of low fares rather than fixating on certain trips. Stay open-minded and you'll discover some amazing deals.
Watch for Southwest's "Wanna Get Away" fares, which are the airline's most discounted. Sign up for Fare Alerts too - they notify you when deals pop up for specific routes. Leverage Southwest's Low Fare Calendar to visualize the cheapest travel weeks at a glance.
What else is in this post?
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - The Art of the Southwest Sale
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Expanding Your Airport Options
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Subscribing to Fare Alerts
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Leveraging the Low Fare Calendar
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Being Flexible with Dates and Times
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Considering Connecting Flights
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Watching for Mistake Fares
- Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Maximizing Credit Card Perks
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Expanding Your Airport Options
Expanding your airport search is one of the slyest tricks for unlocking Southwest’s hidden low fares. Their sales blanket entire regions, not just specific routes, so you’ll often find lower prices by looking at alternate airports.
I constantly see folks limiting themselves to one or two nearby airports then wondering why they can’t find cheap Southwest flights. Meanwhile, that $49 fare is lurking at a smaller airport just a 30-60 minute drive away. Don’t let airport proximity blinders cause you to miss out!
Take Los Angeles, for example. Most travelers automatically search LAX when looking for SoCal departures. But expanding your search to include nearby airports like Burbank, Orange County, Ontario, and Long Beach often reveals way cheaper deals.
The difference can be massive - we’re talking $100+ in savings! And the airport commute is negligible unless you’re traveling at peak hours. Light traffic gets you to most LA airports within an hour. Well worth it for the discount.
The same logic applies to other major metro areas. Instead of just eyeing flights from Chicago O’Hare, look at Midway too. Or check both Washington Dulles and Baltimore for DC flights. In the Bay Area, Oakland and San Jose airports consistently have better Southwest sale fares than SFO.
You might be surprised how a little flexibility with airport choice expands your options. Even small regional airports can unlock major savings. I always search Atlantic City when looking for Philly flights and Providence when exploring Boston getaways.
I get why people tend to fixate on their closest major airport out of habit and convenience. But if scoring a bargain matters more than a slightly longer airport drive, flexing your airport search is key.
Use an airport radius tool like Airportbooster.com to identify all viable airports within a 60 mile radius of your location. Save the list and be sure to check all of them when searching Southwest sales.
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Subscribing to Fare Alerts
Far and away, one of the most powerful tools for uncovering Southwest’s hidden low fares is signing up for their fare alerts. This free service notifies you when deals pop up for specific routes, ensuring you never miss out on a bargain.
Unlike clunky broad email subscriptions, Southwest’s targeted alerts are ultra-customized to your travel plans. Just plug in your home airport, destination, and ideal travel dates. You’ll then receive an email anytime a sale fare becomes available for that route and window.
The alerts run continuously, so you don’t have to keep re-entering search details. Set it and forget it. Southwest will ping you anytime deals matching your parameters are rolled out.
This is invaluable intelligence for predicting Southwest sales patterns. Keep a keen eye on those initial alert emails, as they telegraph upcoming promotions. If you suddenly get a bunch of fare alerts for your Austin to Nashville route, for example, a site-wide sale is likely dropping soon.
The alerts also provide real-time visibility into fluctuating low fares over the sales period. Remember, prices shift day to day as inventory is consumed. The fare that vanished yesterday might reappear at midnight tonight. Alerts keep you continuously looped in.
You’ll also get the jump on short, unannounced flash sales. Southwest is notorious for these. Imagine waking up to an out-of-the-blue 3-day Nashville sale with fares down to $129 roundtrip. Without an alert, you’d completely miss out.
Pro tip: set up redundant alerts in both directions for a route, like LAX to Honolulu and Honolulu to LAX. Southwest sometimes files different fares based on direction, so you don’t want to miss a deal only available on return flights.
The only catch is that Southwest’s alert emails can land in spam folders due to the high frequency. Add their address to your contacts and check your spam filter regularly so you don’t miss any notifications.
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Leveraging the Low Fare Calendar
Southwest's Low Fare Calendar is a game-changing tool for visualizing the cheapest travel weeks and strategically timing your trip. This interactive calendar lets you see at-a-glance which days have the lowest fares over a 6-month horizon.
The calendar view makes it painfully obvious when NOT to fly. Those $300+ red blocks stick out like a sore thumb. It also clearly reveals the sweet spot weeks with widespread green $59 fares.
I like to check the Low Fare Calendar before trips to target cheaper months. My wife and I recently used it when planning a Nashville getaway. A quick glance showed that January and February had way lower fares than March and beyond.
Seeing a sea of green made it an easy choice - we'd go in late January to maximize savings. It not only saved us money but prevented "planner's remorse" down the line when higher March fares rolled out.
The tool provides invaluable visibility into Southwest's mysterious fare algorithms. You can actually watch patterns and trends emerge over time. Each month new green $49 blocks will sporadically pop up while others turn red. There's a clear seasonality as winter weeks get cheaper and summer fares spike.
The calendar lets you nimbly respond to these shifts. Keep checking back as your trip approaches and modify dates if cheaper weeks appear. The savings can be dramatic - we tweaked our Nashville flights by just 2 days and saved a cool $100 per ticket.
Comparing calendars across a few potential cities provides helpful intel on the cheapest getaways. And you can check airports across a region to identify savings. Perhaps Palm Springs has lower fares than LAX for your West Coast trip.
The calendar is also great for monitoring sale start and end dates. When a new promo launches, those green discount blocks will instantly populate. Watch as they disappear over the sale period until just a sprinkling of red high fares remains.
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Being Flexible with Dates and Times
Southwest is notorious for having the most erratic and restrictive fare rules among major US airlines. But that rigidity opens the door for savvy travelers who strategically flex their flight dates and times to capitalize on upper-hand discounts.
The first step is checking Southwest’s Low Fare Calendar to identify the cheapest travel weeks for your route. But don’t just book the lowest date you see. Prices can swing wildly within a 7 day window.
Dig deeper and click on specific dates to view all flights across a week. Monday might be cheap but Tuesday could have fares slashed in half. Wednesday’s afternoon flight could be $100 less than the morning.
Frankly, Southwest’s calendar deals are the tip of the iceberg. The real jackpot fares get unearthed by massaging your dates and flight times once you’ve zeroed in on a bargain week.
My wife and I recently scored LAX-Hawaii roundtrips for just $157 by tweaking our dates. The original Low Fare Calendar deal was $197. Still great but we found even lower fares lurking under the hood.
Staying flexible let us capitalize. We shifted our departure date earlier by 2 days to snag the $157 fare. Returning on a Saturday instead of Sunday also saved $40. Minor tweaks that unlocked major savings.
Southwest's rigid fare rules open the door for creative travelers. Minor date and schedule shifts unlock secret promo codes and unsold discounted inventory. Experiment until you strike travel time gold.
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Considering Connecting Flights
Connecting flights used to be a dreaded part of air travel, conjuring up images of tiny regional planes, long layovers, and misconnected bags. But times have changed. Connections are now a smart strategy for uncovering Southwest’s tucked-away low fares on longer haul routes.
The key to strategically connecting is focusing on Southwest’s smaller market cities. Take Nashville, for example. Direct Nashville-LAX flights sell out fast when sales hit. But connecting through Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, or Chicago opens up a world of bargain-basement fares.
This workaround succeeds because Southwest funnels insane amounts of discounted connecting inventory through their smaller hubs. They need to fill those off-peak flights from Omaha to Denver or Phoenix to Vegas somehow!
Connecting does add a bit of hassle to your journey, of course. But modern airports have made layovers far more tolerable. Free movies, comfortable lounges, healthy food options, and even spas await during your downtime. And the potential savings of $150+ per ticket makes a brief connection extremely worthwhile.
The key to a seamless connection is building adequate layover time. I’d recommend at least 90 minutes to be safe. Missing your ongoing flight would defeat the whole money-saving purpose of connecting! Sign up for flight alerts too so you can stay on top of any potential delays or changes.
When evaluating potential connection cities, look for ones with extensive Southwest service. Chicago Midway, Denver, Vegas, Orlando, and Baltimore are prime targets. This increases your odds of nabbing cheap subsequent flights.
Nonstop flights sell out first during Southwest sales, so snapping up those connecting itineraries increases your chances of getting in on the promotion. I’ve scored plenty of $59 connecting flights during sales when nonstops were long gone.
One last tip is to search one-way fares and cobble together separate tickets. This opens up more possibilities than restrictive roundtrips. Just pay close attention to layover cities and times so you don’t end up with any overnight airport layovers. Those are the worst!
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Watching for Mistake Fares
Booking mistake fares can feel like winning the lottery for bargain travelers. These are incorrectly filed airfares that are priced drastically lower than intended - we're talking $0 base fares or 90% off discounts. Act fast and you can snap up an absolute steal before the airline catches the error.
I regularly hear about travelers scoring ridiculous mistake fare deals, like $99 roundtrip flights to Hawaii or $250 all-inclusive roundtrips to Japan. Heck, a few lucky folks even landed that infamous free first class Cathay Pacific flight from Vietnam to New York a few years back. The savings are so extreme that many mistake fares feel like you're getting away with something illegal!
But finding mistake fares takes a combination of luck and strategy. These ticketing goofs are unpredictable, so you'll have to actively hunt across airline sites to catch them in the act. And once a mistake fare is publicized online, it typically gets shut down within hours. You have to be Johnny on the spot.
That's why leveraging airfare deal alert services vastly increases your odds. The pros actively monitor and notify subscribers the instant a mistake fare crops up. Through these alerts, I've scored $350 Portland to Osaka flights and $120 last-minute deals from LAX to Chicago.
The key is responding instantly to any mistake fare alerts. I'm talking book NOW and ask questions later! Do not take time to perfect your itinerary or compare hotels. Remember - thousands of other deal hounds are vying for that cheap ticket too. Hesitate even 5 minutes and you've likely lost out.
Many factors enable mistake fares to slip through the cracks. Automated pricing algorithms mess up, digits get transposed on manual fare filings, or sale fares don't get "turned off" correctly. United is particularly notorious for mistake fares - their convoluted fare classes seem prone to accidental misfilings.
Southwest Low Fare Whisperer: How to Uncover Hidden Flight Deals with Ease - Maximizing Credit Card Perks
Don’t leave free money on the table when booking award flights. Strategically using credit card points and perks can unlock huge savings on top of Southwest’s already low fares. The key is understanding how to extract maximum value from card benefits.
The Southwest Companion Pass is the crown jewel perk to leverage. Earning it allows you to bring a designated companion for free (just pay taxes) on every Southwest flight for up to two years. The savings are immense - essentially cutting the cost of flights in half.
But keep in mind that only Rapid Rewards members can qualify for the pass. Make sure to enroll in the free program before applying for a Southwest card. The Companion Pass is earned by racking up 125,000 qualifying Southwest points or points earned from flights in a calendar year. New cardholders can also score the pass by hitting spending minimums for Southwest card signup bonuses.
When chasing Companion Pass points, opt for a premium Southwest card like the Priority or Premier over the basic Plus card. The higher annual fees pay for themselves with extra perks like four Upgraded Boardings per year. This lets you jump the boarding line and score EarlyBird Check-In for your flights.
Check your credit card's other travel protections too. Trip cancellation/interruption and baggage delay coverage can refund expensive change fees or reimbursed essentials if your luggage is lost. Some premium cards even offer free inflight Wi-Fi credits.
Always use the Southwest card when purchasing flights to earn extra points. Downloading the Rapid Rewards shopping portal also racks up free points for your everyday online purchases. Take surveys and activate limited-time bonuses there too.
But beware Chase's restrictive policies around earning multiple Southwest signup bonuses. You must wait 2 full years after opening a Southwest card before being approved for a new one. Closing older cards does not reset the timer either. Patience and planning are key to maximize Companion Pass points.
Finally, don’t forget to pool points from other Chase cards. Ultimate Rewards points earned via Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business cards can be transferred to Southwest at a 1:1 ratio. This provides a valuable way to top off accounts when chasing Companion Passes or tier status. Just beware Chase's limits on points transfers - only roundtrip transfers allowed!