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Advanced bulk ticket purchase

dclowd9901
Explorer C

This may not be the right board for this question, but hopefully it's not too far off.

 

I read a post recently about why Southwest does not do ticketing far in advance. This is not about that.

 

I am in a certain circumstance that requires me to travel on a very fixed schedule between two specific locations. I was wondering if Southwest had a program that allowed me to buy all of my tickets for the year in advance at a discounted rate for those dates with only the ability to purchase tickets for, say, "morning" and "evening", since I know scheduling changes as the flights approach.

 

At this point, it's just annoying that I have to keep coming back month after month to buy the next roundtrip flights. And I'm sure Southwest would benefit from having an assured traveler.

1 REPLY 1

Re: Advanced bulk ticket purchase

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@dclowd9901 wrote:

This may not be the right board for this question, but hopefully it's not too far off.

 

I read a post recently about why Southwest does not do ticketing far in advance. This is not about that.

 

I am in a certain circumstance that requires me to travel on a very fixed schedule between two specific locations. I was wondering if Southwest had a program that allowed me to buy all of my tickets for the year in advance at a discounted rate for those dates with only the ability to purchase tickets for, say, "morning" and "evening", since I know scheduling changes as the flights approach.

 

At this point, it's just annoying that I have to keep coming back month after month to buy the next roundtrip flights. And I'm sure Southwest would benefit from having an assured traveler.


There's no "flexible" ticket option that I'm aware of, however a couple of suggestions might help  - although it sounds like you are a frequent flyer already, but maybe not on Southwest (yet)?

 

Southwest's tickets are firm, but the policies allow flexibility in many ways:

 

  • You can buy tickets ahead of time, up through the currently released schedule. If you generally know your time there are even options setup to "buy ticket again" for the same route and time only changing the dates. 
  • Buy one-way tickets for ease of tracking and changing your tickets in case you change/cancel very often, sometimes mix airlines inbound/outbound, etc.
  • If your usual flight time was 10 a.m. but sometimes you fly at 7 a.m. there is same-day standby for A-list if you fly Southwest for a while and earn that status. (Let us know if you have other times to suggest for the example.)
  • Since there aren't any change fees, go ahead and book away and then change times as you know them paying only the increase in current airfare, or in some cases receiving a credit.
  • Always use your oldest travel funds first for rebooking. Since you are booking so far out you'll have a shorter window to use travel credits than some others since the expiration is one year from the date of booking.

Let us know if I've misunderstood your situation, or if you'd like to look at any specifics of your common route. 

 


@dclowd9901 wrote:

 

I am in a certain circumstance that requires me to travel on a very fixed schedule between two specific locations. I was wondering if Southwest had a program that allowed me to buy all of my tickets for the year in advance at a discounted rate for those dates with only the ability to purchase tickets for, say, "morning" and "evening", since I know scheduling changes as the flights approach.

 


Specifically for this point - book your best guess now if there is any consistency to your schedule, and change it later for no change fees. The total cost would be the same as if you waited to book it anyway, and if you don't change then you'll have locked it in way early. 

 

The only downside is that travel funds expire one year from date of purchase, so if you did end up with credits from canceling or rebooking at lower fares you'd have a limited time to use it if you booked as far in advance as you could.

 

 

 

 

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