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Southwest is out with its latest fare sale, with fares from just $59 one-way (or less than 3k points) on a variety of routes for flights booked by 4/20/17. Here is an example of a low end fare (in points), between Washington, DC and Indianapolis:
As you can see, that round is just 5,994 points and $11.20 round trip. I saw a few other decent values in this week’s sale, such as Albany, NY to Denver, Colorado nonstop for $118 or 6,908 Rapid Rewards points one-way:
And while weekend prices are often a bit higher, this route was even quite reasonably priced as a weekend trip, with a Friday-Sunday in October coming in at just 15,376 points and $11.20 (or $258 round trip), nonstop:
That compares pretty favorably to the competition, with weekend options all involving connections and starting at $403 — and unless you’re a credit card holder or an elite member, bags don’t fly free:
Of course, if you have a companion pass, the value over alternatives there is incredible — at a net cost of less than 7,700 points each round trip plus $22.40 in taxes, that’s hard to beat. American, of course, has no save availability on Friday/Sunday, so it would be 60,000 miles per person round trip to fly American:
Also remember to check your existing reservations — if the prices have dropped, you can get the difference refunded. The process is simple — just click to “change” your flight and select the new flight you want. You can even select the same exact flight you already have — if it has dropped in price, you will be refunded the difference. Here’s an example of a time I did that:
As you can see, my new ticket total (6,656 points) was less than the exchanged ticket total (9,536 points), so I received a refund of 2,880 points. Those points go directly back into your account and can be used immediately (and have no expiration beyond normal program terms). If you do this with a paid ticket, you will receive Southwest credit that will be good for 1 year from the date that you originally made your booking.
See a link to the full sale here and search availability a month at a time here (just change the city pairs and month).
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Thanks for the heads up Nick! Just got back 1600 points! 🙂
Thanks, this was super helpful! I had an August flight I was able to get a credit for since it dropped in price. I wish all airlines made this as easy as Southwest does…
If you have a companion you have to cancel that reservation first, than you can change it. I was able to get 3100 points back so it does help to check but looks like it did charge me the $11.20 fee again.
True point that you must cancel the companion first.
When you cancelled the companion, it should have given you the choice as to whether to refund the taxes to your CC or to keep it as a credit. If you keep it as a credit, you’ll have to use that confirmation number to apply the funds to a future reservation. I always choose to have the taxes refunded to my CC.