Update: the schedule was loaded this morning, then removed, then loaded again!
This is just a quick post with heads up on the fact that as of today, Southwest schedule will finally be extended through August 6th, 2018. I’m not sure what time of the day the flights will be loaded, so check the website periodically. I know that many of you are waiting to book your summer tickets. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this extension myself, so I can finally add the last piece of the puzzle to my South Pacific trip next year. Hooray!
A couple of things to keep in mind:
1) Booking with points (or even credit card) is best because refund policy is very generous. When you book flights with gift cards, your travel funds will have an expiration date. See my post Be aware of these quirks when rebooking Southwest flights
2) Sometimes you’ll get the lowest price when the schedule is released, but not always. Fortunately, you can always cancel and rebook if the price goes down. Be aware, changing flights will now make them non-refundable. So, you always want to cancel first if at all possible.
3) Booking one-way flights is usually best because it allows you to have more flexibility. That way, if the price goes down on one leg of your trip, you won’t have to cancel the whole itinerary.
4) Always start your search with one passenger because sometimes you can save a bit of money or points that way.
Good luck with flight hunting!
Author: Leana
Leana is the founder of Miles For Family. She enjoys beach vacations and visiting her family in Europe. Originally from Belarus, Leana resides in central Florida with her husband and two children.
I’ve been waiting for the Southwest flights to open up. Thanks for the tips, I’d forgotten a few of those.
About 3 weeks ago, I read on the Southwest site that the schedule would be extended on November 4th. So maybe they were just doing the behind the scenes website update and it somehow went public by accident. I do believe that we should see the summer schedule on Saturday.
@Jason It’s very weird. I believe I saw November 2nd as the date of extension, but perhaps that was a typo. Regardless, the summer schedule went live this morning and I was able to book our flight without issues. I went back to book flights for my in-laws few hours later and they were gone! I’ve reached out to Southwest and they said they are working on fixing this issue. But perhaps you are right and they intended to release it on Saturday. We’ll see. Very strange!
@Jason Looks like summer schedule is loaded again.
I saw that. Thanks!
I looked at flights for our summer trip, and they are a bit higher than I hoped. I’m going to hold off for a bit and see if Spirit comes in lower or if I should use my AA miles instead. I hate to use AA miles for domestic, but I will.
@Nancy Southwest is not always the best deal, so it pays to shop around. We just flew on Spirit, and it was absolutely fine. No issues whatsoever.
P.S. Something weird is going on with Southwest schedule. It was loaded this morning, the disappeared. I’ve reached out to Southwest and apparently, they are aware of it.
I’ve been waiting for this. Finally! I think I got a great deal on our tickets from TPA to SEA for our summer trip, but the return flights were high. Booo. I hope I can rebook them later and get some points back. I guess I can play around when I have more time and check different options but I wanted to lock something in. In my brief search, I got the best deal I could find that didn’t put us on some overnight flight.
Nice! Just booked mine as well. The flight is later in the day that I was hoping for, but oh well. The price is right, and it’s non-stop. I avoid overnight flights like a plague these days. Keep an eye on your return flight, you may get lucky.