Booking Same Day

[cshuttleworth05]

Hi! My boyfriend and I live in different cities and frequently travel back and forth. We normally try to book far in advance where we can get the discounted flights. There are also many times, events change and last minute we would love to hop on the plane and visit each other. However, the amount the flight increases to causes us to stray from doing so.

As a business, I would see that as lost revenue. A customer is willing to spend money and there are empty seats available. Is there anything available that could help us book last minute at a discounted rate? For example, a stand-by (where we arrive a certain time before a flight and if there is room on the plane we can pay the "wanna get away" price last minute).

If not, could you please explain why there is nothing available and the logic behind turning away customers last minute rather than trying to fill the seats? 

Thank you!

[DAL]

Love the idea of discounts for last minute travel to the cities you LUV! Truth be told, I haven't found a flight that wasn't completely full by the time we left the gate in some time. However, if there was a way to snag one of the last seats for cheap, you bet your butt I'd buy that ticket! In reality, though, as any product and it's substitutes become more scarce, a good marketer is going to hold out for whomever is willing to pay the most. That's just economics. What if, though, Southwest offered these fares to RR members but only to the primary or secondary city that they select on their profile? Wouldn't that be cool? Love your idea!

[cshuttleworth05]

Thanks, Dal! I agree with you! Those more popular flights are less likely to have any seats left, and I understand the princple of economics. However, the flight that we take is never even into the C boarding. So, there are plenty of seats left. Which is why I raise the question; Why not offer a last minute flight for a "wanna get away" rate to help fill the seats? I know my boyfriend and I would be purchasing a lot more plane tickets if they did. It is because they are so expensive that we weigh other options and end up not booking with Southwest. 

And yes! I really like your idea as well! I would love it if Southwest could incorporate something to those flexible, last minute, customers! 

[DancingDavidE]

I have found that sometimes the WGA fares do persist into the current day, although maybe this isn't the case for your particular route unfortunately.

I don't know exactly what algorithm is behind the reservation system that makes WGA unavailable most times but not all times. I'm sure many flights without WGA fares are actually fully booked, but it sounds like you have a route that is often not fully booked but still only has Anytime/Business Selects?

[obonnie]

I agree that there should be some avenue to fill remaining seats that is not exorbitant. I flew from SNA to DCA a few ago for my sisters wedding, and both flights had several open seats. Up until a few days ago my SIL was not able to attend the wedding because of medical concerns. She just got the all clear from her dr a few days ago, but only feels comfortable flying with her husband who is already booked on a Southwest flight. Of course the flight is now $1000+ for her to book, which they can't afford. Its just so frustrating that there are empty seats that most likely won't be filled because they are priced above reason and she wil be sitting at home alone.

[bgubs14]

Hmmm good idea ! Yeah I have definitely mostly seen SWA flights being close to full but here and there, there’s a lot of empty seats 💺. Usually this happens on very common, week-day direct flights in the morning. I think the dynamic pricing works pretty well with southwest and encourages folks to book early but I agree some of it should go down close to the end. The hard part is timing it just right so the airline doesn’t end up losing money with everyone waiting for prices to drop at the last minute 

[DancingDavidE]

I'm speculating, but there was a huge outrage nationally against overselling airplanes a few years back. At that time Southwest agreed they wouldn't intentionally oversell flights (plane change, weather, etc. may still cause this to happen occasionally).

I'm sure that as a result of that change in practice there will now be more likely to have a few unoccupied seats each flight, and costs paid by everyone who does fly would need to cover the empties compared to before.

Southwest also has people looking to standby that are frequent flyers, so having some spots to keep those people happy is a good thing, and they wouldn't want to give away an empty seat for cheap if it may be worth more, or if demand for that seat may show up in the form of a Business Select passenger.

Actually I hadn't put a correlation together yet but the end of overselling seems to coincide at least partially with the increased benefits of same-day standby to A-listers...hmm...