I like flying Southwest. Their prices are good, their cancellation policy is one of the most liberal around, their customer service is generally friendly and helpful, and they don’t nickel and dime you with absurd fees. I know, this sounds like a paid advertisement, but it’s not. Other airlines are screwing up left and right, increasing fees and paying less and less attention to customer service, but Southwest seems to have avoided many of the same pitfalls. Just to be fair, the recent revelation that Southwest knowingly allowed potentially unsafe planes to fly is not one of the things it is doing right.

But in any case, the fact that Southwest is pretty darn cheap is mostly what endears me to them. I’ve flown with them a whole bunch and have discovered a few tips and tricks that can make their already-reasonable fares still cheaper. In the following paragraphs, I’ll outline the fare-reduction strategy I use when I fly Southwest.

The Strategy

So I mentioned that Southwest’s cancellation policy is one of the most liberal around. In fact, they don’t charge you any fee at all to change your ticket; most other airlines will sock you for $50-$100. As a caveat, last-minute flights on Southwest do tend to be very expensive, so if you need to change your itinerary on short notice, you could end up getting nabbed.

Anyway, the nice part about the ticket change policy is that if the fare goes down, you can rebook it at the lower price with no change fee. You don’t even have to place a phone call to do this. Just go to the “View or Change Your Flight” on the front page of Southwest’s website. Whenever I book a ticket on Southwest, I always check back periodically to see if the fare has dropped, and if it has, I rebook it. I recently saved $220 for my mom on a Chicago to Orlando itinerary. The flight was originally booked in January, but I kept watch for her and rebooked it in February when the fare went down and then again in April when it dropped some more. The final price for the Chicago to Orlando ticket: $184 round-trip.

Now, when you do this, the leftover funds are not actually returned to you but are held by Southwest in the form of a credit that remains usable for a year from the original booking date. You can transfer these credits to others, so I don’t see why they couldn’t be sold on eBay, although I suppose that might violate some sort of policy. I’ve shared credits with family members in the past and there was never any problem with this – and other eBay members are pretty much a part of my extended family, right?

Playing Games With Ding!

You can play more money-saving games with Southwest’s proprietary Ding! software, which sits in your system tray and alerts you when the airline releases new sale fares. Ding! sales are announced only via Ding!, last for just a day or two, and usually apply to fares about a month out from the sale date. The fares are heavily restricted in terms of flight dates and times. If you’re going from a large city with a busy airport to another large city with a busy airport, you’ll probably be able to find a reduced fare on Ding! that will fit with your plans.

Of course, you won’t want to wait and wait and wait for your city pair to appear on Ding! before you book your ticket. I recommend going ahead and booking the cheapest fare you can find and then periodically checking Ding! to see if something even cheaper comes up. You can’t get to the Ding! fares through the “View or Change Your Flight” link on Southwest’s home page – but you can call up Southwest (1-800-IFLYSWA), cancel your flight, receive a credit, and apply that credit purchase of a Ding! fare. You can even cancel only one leg of your flight and rebook that leg on Ding! I recently rebooked both legs of an LA to Chicago trip on Ding! The original price was $275 – already pretty good – but by keeping an eye on Ding! and rebooking when the opportunity presented itself, I managed to reduce the fare to $211.

Combining Credits

Now, if you fly a lot and continually pursue this strategy, you’ll accumulate a significant number of small credits. When you attempt to use these credits to purchase a new flight, you’ll run into what appears to be a major snag: you can only apply credits from two canceled/rebooked flights to purchase of a new fare. However, there’s a way around this limitation. Let’s say you want to purchase a $300 fare and you have three credits you’d like to use up - a $50 credit, a $75 credit, and a $175 credit. Since you can only use two of these credits toward the purchase of the new flight, you’ll have to combine credits by purchasing and then canceling an itinerary you have no intention of flying. In this case, you could find a $125 flight from anywhere to anywhere, book it using the $50 and $75 credits, cancel the flight, and effectively combine the two credits into one. If you do this, the expiration date of the new credit will be the same as the expiration date of the oldest credit you applied toward purchase of the flight. You’ll then simply use your new $125 credit plus the existing $175 one to book the itinerary you really intend on flying.

There’s only one real problem with this money-saving strategy: the burden of all the credits you accumulate. What are my family and I going to do with $1000 in Southwest Airlines credits? We’re scattered all around the country and we travel frequently, so I suppose we’ll probably be able to use them up. If not, I’ll call on my extended family over at eBay to take care of the problem.

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