Southwest Flight Savings: Tips and Tricks for Saving Big

I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up , especially for a family , but I believe travel isn't just for the rich .

That's why , on Points for Normal People , I share the tips and tricks that my family has been using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every year .

We've been flying Southwest for over 10 years and over time we've gleaned some tricks to getting the best prices that we can on our flights . These strategies can help you stretch your points further so that you can travel even more with the points that you earn .

Before we get into the strategies , there is some background knowledge you need to know about Southwest's prices and booking process . First , it's important to understand that Southwest ticket pricing is extremely volatile . Prices can go up and down every day .

There are statisticians whose job it is to maximize revenue for Southwest , so they're going to do their best to do that . And because Southwest uses dynamic pricing for its points tickets , you see all the same pricing variations as you do with cash tickets .

Now some airlines have dynamic points pricing that isn't necessarily tied to cash prices , but with Southwest it is tied to cash prices . That means that when a cash price on a Southwest ticket goes up , the number of points to book that ticket would go up proportionally .

And because pricing is ever-changing , the price on any given route can change up and down a lot . This is ultimately a good thing , because Southwest also allows you to change your ticket for free . This is the second important piece of background knowledge to understand .

If your ticket has dropped in price and you paid with points , you can essentially click through and change your ticket to the exact same route and you'll get a refund of any difference . This is one reason we love paying with points on Southwest . It makes it so easy to get these refunds back to our account when ticketing price changes .

With your Southwest points , you can pay for a Southwest ticket for anyone , not just yourself , and if you cancel that flight or change it for a refund , even if it was a ticket for someone else , you just get those extra points right back into your account again . If you pay for a Southwest flight with cash , this still applies .

You can still change to the same flight and get a refund for the difference , but you'll get travel funds as a refund rather than a straight cash refund .

Now , the good thing is that travel funds don't expire , but it's still your money being tied up as a travel fund , and those travel funds are tied , at least initially , to the person who had the ticket in their name . We'll talk about how to optimize this change policy throughout this episode .

One more pretty unusual thing about Southwest that's important to understand for planning purposes is that they release their booking calendar in chunks and you can't book super far in advance . Most other airlines let you book flights out about 330 days in advance , and this is on a rolling basis .

So every day they add one new day of flight schedules and you can book about 11 months in advance , but Southwest does things a little differently . As I record this , for instance , it's mid-October and Southwest has flights available to book only through June 4th of next year .

Their website says that on October 30th they will open their schedule for sale for two more months through August 4th of next year . That means you can't plan quite as far ahead as you can with other airlines . So that's the background information .

That's what we're working with First , that Southwest uses dynamic pricing for points tickets that will mirror the cash price of tickets . Next , that Southwest lets you change tickets for free and get a refund if the price has dropped . And third , that Southwest's booking calendar opens in chunks rather than on a rolling basis .

So first let's talk about the best time to book a flight .

You may have heard , and you may still believe , one of the biggest myths in cheap flights , which is that you should wait to buy your tickets till it is Tuesday . Now , from what I've heard , this stems from the early internet days .

Back in those days , airlines would load prices into their websites once a day , and sometimes they would load lower prices in on Tuesdays . But we're not in the early internet days . We're in the 2020s and airlines are constantly pricing and repricing their flights . This is a myth . I wish it wasn't . It would make my life easier .

But buying your ticket on a Tuesday isn't going to help you get the cheapest price Now . It is typically cheapest to fly on a Tuesday or a Wednesday , but the day of the week that you're sitting down to book your ticket is not really a factor .

Some people swear by booking their Southwest tickets the day that the new schedule is released , so they might be sitting at their computer early on October 30th ready to book flights for next summer when the next chunk of Southwest's schedule opens up . And I don't doubt that this works for some people in some routes .

I think it's certainly worth keeping on your radar as an option . In fact , I booked some tickets to Hawaii on the day they were released for spring break and we got some pretty decent fares , and since then I've only seen the tickets go up and up in price .

But most of the time in my market , which is Chicago , the tickets released on that very first day are really really high . The day the tickets for Thanksgiving were released it was 70,000 points one way just one way from Costa Rica back home to Chicago . When we need a flight Now .

Going over a holiday can always be a bit crazy on a route that has limited flights , but right now we're about a month out and the same tickets are down to 39,000 points . It's still really expensive , yes , because this is holiday travel , but at least it came down almost 50% .

So if I had booked on the day the schedule was released and never looked back , I would have definitely overpaid for this ticket . I noticed the same thing on tickets to Cancun . When the winter tickets to Cancun were released from Chicago to Cancun they were 40,000 points each way .

Now they're down to about 13,000 points each way , even on the nonstop flights , even on the weekends . So those are just some examples of how volatile the pricing can be .

So I definitely think it's worth checking flight prices when the schedule opens up , but if you see a crazy price , you don't need to panic Because , especially if the Southwest flights are really out of whack , compared to other airlines on that route , we've found they almost always come down in price .

So that's the first tip Check when new dates on the Southwest schedule are released , but don't panic if prices seem really really high . Now , if your dates are at all flexible , it's really helpful if you use the low fare calendar on the Southwest website , and I mean use it from your computer .

The app lets you see a few days at a time , but the low fare calendar shows you a whole month at a time . So if you're just looking for a weekend trip to Denver , for instance , you might find that going on a different weekend or adjusting your flights by a day might save you a lot of points .

So tip number two is just that Use the low fare calendar to find cheaper dates when you have flexibility . It's by using those two tips in conjunction with this next one that really help us get consistently good prices .

I think one of the most important things that you can do to get the best price on Southwest is to be aware of flight prices and rebook as soon as your flight drops in price . Southwest runs a lot of sales and some of these are true sales , where a lot of flights drop in price .

Southwest runs a lot of sales and some of these are true sales where a lot of flights drop in price , but flights also drop and raise all the time on their routes without official sales . So if you get an email from Southwest about a sale or you see a notification about a sale , it's definitely worth checking to see if your flight has dropped in price .

But again , there are plenty of unadvertised price drops too , anytime you have a flight booked and it drops in price , you can rebook it and get a refund for the difference . You can also do this multiple times .

I will link in the show notes a blog post that walks through the screenshots step by step of how to do this , but as a quick overview , you'll be going to your Southwest account and pulling up your reservation . You'll need to be in the account of whoever actually booked the flight with their points .

So if we used Micah's points to book our tickets , I need to be logged into his account in order to do this . When I find the trip I want to check , I'm going to select it and say I want to change it . This prompts you to search for the flights again . You could change dates , but you can also leave the dates the same .

They will default to the exact same dates that you already have . Then it will pull up a new window and this time it will list the prices , not as the absolute price , but with a plus or a minus sign that will tell you how much prices are up or down compared to what you paid for them . If you see a lower price , you can confirm that .

You want to quote unquote change to the same flight , you should see a negative number . If you don't see a negative number , you don't want to make that change and then , as you keep clicking to confirm , you will eventually see the points credited back to your account .

A little side note here with a tip is that we often tend to book one-way flights instead of round trips with Southwest in order to make it easier to manage these price changes . Unlike some other airlines , southwest really doesn't give a discount for a round-trip ticket . A round-trip ticket just costs the sum of the two one-way tickets .

So there isn't an advantage of having a round-trip versus a one-way . Now this isn't an advantage of having a round trip versus a one-way . Now this isn't always true of other airlines , like if you're flying to Europe . Usually a one-way is hardly cheaper than a round trip , so buying a round trip almost always makes more sense .

What happens with Southwest is if you have a round trip ticket and one half goes down in price and one goes up , it's just that you need to take a minute to backtrack . You can still get a refund for the half that went down in price . This happened shortly after I booked our Hawaii flights , which I did against my own advice , as a round trip .

I was checking the prices and realized one way went up and one way went down . So I had to go back to a previous window and make sure the box was checked that I only wanted to change one half of my trip , not both halves . It just takes an extra minute to back up a few steps . Does that make sense ?

If you book as two one-ways , it's just a little bit more straightforward when you go to check the pricing and then change it . If you forgot what you paid for a flight , you can have Southwest resend your receipt , but this also really is only clear for a one-way flight .

With a round-trip flight , they will send you a lump sum for the round trip , so it doesn't help you easily figure out what you paid for each half directly Rebooking your Southwest flights when prices go down is key to getting good prices , but you don't want to check every day

. There is a way to slightly automate this process of knowing when your Southwest flights go up and down in price . It's not a perfect system , but it helps . It's definitely helped me save points this year . It's only become possible this year because now Southwest has allowed Google Flights and Kayak to show Southwest flights on those websites .

Both Google Flights and Kayak also allow you to track flight prices for free and can help notify you as prices go up or down .

If you want to use these tools to help notify you if prices drop , here's how to set it up the day that you book a flight , you should go to Google Flights or Kayak and search that same route , make sure you set up the filter to only show Southwest , and then you can toggle on the switch to track that specific route on that day .

From then on , you will get notified if the price changes . Now you probably paid with points , but since points prices are tied to cash prices , any changes in cash should be reflected in points .

The problem with Google Flights is that you can't set up a baseline price based on what you paid , so it will tell you any time the price changes , then it takes that new price as the baseline price . If you've gotten a few emails and you don't remember what price you booked at , it isn't as helpful .

So a very simple step you can take is just to make a note of the cash price on the day and route you booked even just a note in your phone so that you have an easy comparison when you get a Google Flight price alert email . When you put all of that together , you can have a fairly streamlined system to help you get a good price on your routes .

You'll check for prices when the schedule's released . You'll use the low fare calendar if you have any flexibility . When you book a flight , you'll make note of the price you paid in points and the cash equivalent .

Then you'll set up a Google Flight Alert to track that route for price changes , and then , anytime you get an alert or see that Southwest is having a sale , you'll log in to check . If your flights went down in price , rebook to the same flight if it has gone down , to get a refund for the difference . That's the main system we use .

Flying on holidays , though , is always more expensive , so even if you're using all of those strategies , you still might be seeing high prices on peak dates . So for that we have a more advanced strategy that I'll discuss here . This also isn't a 100% foolproof strategy , but if you have enough points , it's certainly worth a try .

This is the schedule change trick . This works thanks to a little-known Southwest policy . This policy is that if you book a flight and the flight times change at all , even by a minute . Southwest will let you rebook onto any other flight between your departure and destination for no extra charge , any flight within 14 days of your original flight .

So if you booked a cheap flight with a layover , you can rebook onto a non-stop at the time you actually want . If you booked a Wednesday night red-eye flight but would rather fly Thursday , you can change to that .

The only factors here are that you need to have a schedule change and you have to rebook onto a flight within 14 days on either side of your flight . Now , one thing that's a pain with this strategy is that Southwest doesn't always tell you when your flight schedule has changed .

So it doesn't always tell you when this has been activated and you have this golden ticket . And even if they do tell you , they usually just send you a generic email saying your flight has changed , and if you have multiple flights booked , it can be hard to figure out which one changed .

There also seems to be only a two-week period now from when the schedule change is made to when you can change the ticket for free online . You can still change it after that , but you need to call in to do it . But it's still worth those small hassles , especially for expensive routes or dates .

The reality is that Southwest makes a ton of minor schedule changes , and some major ones , and the earlier you book , the more likely you are to have a schedule change , giving you this golden ticket where you can change to any flight . Here's an example of how you can put this strategy into practice .

Typically , I'd suggest doing this only when you have points to spare . We don't usually do this with cash tickets , because then we'd be locking up our cash in Southwest travel funds if we end up canceling and it doesn't work out . When we do this , we typically book two flights . First , we book the flight we actually want .

If the flight we want is expensive , we will book a second flight within 14 days of the flight that we want and we'll pick the absolute cheapest one we can find , and then we just hold on to it and hope that cheap flight has a schedule change . It's important that you book for a different day . You can't have two flights on the same day on the same route .

Southwest system will auto cancel the second one within about 24 hours , so it has to be for another day . Again , the earlier that you can book these flights , the more likely you are to have it affected by a schedule change . The more legs it has , the more likely it is to have a schedule change , because you have two different flights that might be affected .

I also theorize , but have not confirmed that the later in the day it is , the more likely it is to have a schedule change . That's because when schedule changes start , it seems like it's kind of like dominoes , since they are scheduling a plane for a whole day .

So if a plane gets to Denver one minute later , that means its next flight is one minute later or more , and so on . This is always a gamble , but there's no real risk if you have points to spare , because if your flight doesn't get a schedule change , you'll just cancel it and get your points back and then continue on with your expensive flight .

We were able to use this last year to get really cheap tickets to Mexico , but so far have been unsuccessful with our trip to Costa Rica . So for me I have a cheap flight on the way home from Costa Rica that I've been hoping and hoping we get a schedule change on , but we haven't yet .

If we do get a schedule change and I get that golden ticket , I would then look up that cheap flight and log in to change that cheap one that just changed its schedule . I should at that point see that any flight within two weeks should show as zero points to change to it .

If it didn't and I know I had a schedule change I would then call in to ask an agent to book the change for me . Southwest's customer service agents are really some of the best .

They are generally very friendly and really helpful , so I would change that flight to the one I actually want and then only after that is confirmed would I go back and cancel any other flights I had booked .

The risk factor here is minimal if you have the points to float to try for a schedule change , but you do have to remember to cancel your flights if it doesn't work out . You'll need to cancel at least 10 minutes before your flight departs in order to get a full refund .

I want to mention a few more quick tips and then I'll review some action steps and habits you can establish to help you keep getting these cheaper Southwest flights . If you have a companion pass , we often wait to add our companions till a few weeks before the flight .

That's because anytime your flight drops in price and you want to change to the new price , you'd need to cancel your companion's ticket , then make the change , then add them back on . It takes about five minutes , so it isn't too bad , but I just find it annoying If I'm traveling at a peak time .

I do usually add my companion right away though , in order to make sure that the plane doesn't sell out , but if not , I'll just wait to make those pricing changes easier . If you're worried you'll lose your companion spot with canceling and rebooking , you can always call Southwest and they can make the change for you and they will give you a refund that way .

If you're paying with cash , it's worth noting that you can often buy discounted Southwest gift cards at Costco and Sam's Club . The cheapest seems to be about $430 for a $500 gift card , and that's often available around Christmas time . You should also check your Chase cards , as many of them occasionally include offers for 10% cash back on Southwestcom .

When you're making any purchase , let's review the steps you can take to give yourself the best chance at the cheapest tickets . First , check prices as far out as you can to see if you can find a good price . It's worth checking when flight schedules are released , but don't panic if they're super high .

Next , use the low fare calendar to help you find a decent price for your route . Right after you book , I recommend that you make a note on your phone or in a notebook of the cash price that was equivalent on the day that you booked . This will make it easier to track those price changes .

Also , right after you book , set up flight price tracking with Google Flights to be sent to your email . If you have points to spare , and especially if your flights are expensive , use that low fare calendar to find the cheapest flight . You can , within 14 days of the flight that you actually want , monitor that cheap flight for schedule changes .

Anytime you see a sale , or as often as you feel like , you can check Southwest's site to see if any of your flights have gone down in price . While Google Flights should automate this , I know a lot of people just like checking regularly , just in case . Book and rebook as often as you're able to .

The action step today is more just about making a simple plan to start these habits so you can help get yourself cheaper flights . The most important one is to establish a system to check and recheck for price changes . You can do this manually .

Maybe you'll check every Monday , or you can do this by setting up a Google Flight Alert every time after you book a ticket . Either way , I also suggest you get in the habit of keeping a record .

A simple way would be notes on your phone of what you paid in points , the flight times and the cash price the day you booked . This will give you an easy reference to see if there's been a schedule change or a price change .

If you're new to a Compan companion pass , I'm also going to link a YouTube video I have on companion pass booking tips , because , while it is fairly easy to learn how to use those companion pass as well , it's not always intuitive right at first . I'll also link in the show notes some posts that have step-by-step screenshots of rebooking flights .

Thanks so much for spending time with me today . I look forward to seeing you next time , where we will continue to unlock these secrets of travel points together .