Southwest booking disappointment

[katallo]

We have found the same thing from BWI. I think everyone is so frustrated because of the times and the pricing. You have to booked a horribly inconvenient time or a connecting flight to get the lower price (and yes, pricing is still high). They have 4 or 5 nonstops into TPA in the fall. The one decent time is 10:30 or 3:15. 10:30 is 222.00 per person. Our flights have not budged one bit either.

I'm going to contact our resort and see if we can't adjust our week to Sunday to Sunday because Allegiant offers a non stop from BWI to Sarasota on Sundays and Thursday at a good price.

We love SW but as others have said it is frustrating.

 

[tnolan]

I used to book them a lot to go many places, but whenever I look for a flight from LGA to MCO, all they have is 1 stops. DH is not interested in having to make a stop and a layover for what is essentially a 2 and a half to 3 hr flight, so we don't book Disney trips with them anymore.

 

[FCDub]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

 

[Farro]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

For myself, I don't love flying -at all, and the take off is the worst part. There's no way I'm taking off, landing, then taking off and landing again!


(obviously it's a necessity for some destinations, but when it's not, we will pay more for non-stop)

 

[snoopy5386]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

I don't mind a stop on a week long trip, but for barely 4 days? I don't want a 2 hour flight to take 6 or 8.

 

[snoopy5386]

Update - after stressing about this for days - it was killing me to DVC reservations and have a flight out, but not a flight home, I realized I do have some wiggle room. I was originally planning a Wednesday night - Sunday trip and taking Thursday off work/school. I did this because Thursday was a half day/afternoon inservice. But I realized that I could just as easily shift the trip to Thursday night - Monday and take Monday off instead. And BRV at Wilderness lodge still had a room available for Sunday night so I was able to move my reservation without issue! My kids will miss an extra half day of school, but but oh well. I ended up spending a little more to switch my flight from Wednesday to Thursday, but still saved $116 overall and the flight time coming back is better - getting in at 10 pm vs 11:30. My husband and kids will take Tuesday off to recover so that means that everyone except me only has to drag themselves into work for 3 days that week vs 4. Now I can relax and wait for my trip!

 

[katallo]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

It is awful for a 2 hour flight to take 5 hours but personally it's ear pain.

 

[DisneyinPA]

We have found the same thing from BWI. I think everyone is so frustrated because of the times and the pricing. You have to booked a horribly inconvenient time or a connecting flight to get the lower price (and yes, pricing is still high). They have 4 or 5 nonstops into TPA in the fall. The one decent time is 10:30 or 3:15. 10:30 is 222.00 per person. Our flights have not budged one bit either.

I'm going to contact our resort and see if we can't adjust our week to Sunday to Sunday because Allegiant offers a non stop from BWI to Sarasota on Sundays and Thursday at a good price.

We love SW but as others have said it is frustrating.

I have a flight booked on SW from PIT on a Thursday and got a half decent price of $109 per person. I haven’t booked the return yet and it’s stressing me out!! The nonstops are from $215-295 per person on a Saturday June 22 the they haven’t budged. I only have 3 month til we leave. I was trying to figure out what was major event was going on in Pit but there isn’t any. I’m not sure what SW is trying to pull but it’s really ticking me off. Those prices are like traveling during a major holiday. I’m about to get a twitter account and write them and say hey what’s the deal. Really frustrating!!

 

[Allison]

I’m not sure what SW is trying to pull but it’s really ticking me off.

Bottom line-Southwest is a corporation trying to make money. If they can sell the seats at those prices, they should. Only if they aren't selling should the price be lowered.

 

[kristenrice]

It is awful for a 2 hour flight to take 5 hours but personally it's ear pain.

Have you tried EarPlanes? I have terrible sinusitis and ear pain when we fly and I started using EarPlanes (the name brand, not generics) and they have been amazing. I have no problems at all with the pressure changes anymore. The only discomfort I have (and it's 100% my own choice) is that I wear noise-cancelling over-the-ear headphones OVER my EarPlanes. That exerts outward pressure on them which, when worn constantly for a 2.5 hour flight, results in some mild pain/discomfort on my outer ear. It's really a small amount of discomfort compared to the raging headache and pain that I would have for hours after a flight if I didn't wear the EarPlanes. They are about $12 and you can buy them at drugstores or even at the airport.

 

[katallo]

Kristen, thanks. I have used them and they are a life saver. Only on one occasion did I have a total blockage for 3 days. But, it was enough to make me search for nonstops

 

[nkereina]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

Its not a deal breaker for us, but the inconvenience of a layover is slightly higher on Southwest because you need to get to your next gate at least 30 minutes prior to boarding if you want to board at your assigned boarding position. We've been in the position before where our incoming flight was a bit late, and by the time we got to our next gate, boarding for our second flight had already begun. We had EBCI and our boarding position was somewhere in the mid-A's. By the time we got to the gate, they were boarding mid-B's. We were able to board right away with the B's, but didn't have our choice of seats. This also negates the value of EBCI on the connecting flight. This is always a risk with Southwest layovers.

 

[sponica]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

It's a point in contention in my household, I hate being in airports, perfectly fine with the flying, but hate being in the airport.
Husband is the opposite, hates being in the air.
I would prefer to fly nonstop to orlando, it's a 3 hourish flight. He wants to book on points on american, which just adds more time to the travel day. (on the way down we ended up with a 3 hour layover in JFK....) Our travel day down was a 12 hour travel day....I only agreed to it because it was on points.
The last time I flew non stop, I had an 8 AM flight (at an airport 10 minutes from the house) and was at Port Orleans Riverside by 1?

I told him the next trip we could book on AA points if and only if we flew out of MHT. I'm not dealing with the hassle of Logan again...

 

[Rach3975]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

Depends on the trip and who I'm with. My husband despises flying, so he won't fly unless it's nonstop. One stop isn't a deal breaker for me, but since there are non-stops in our market that are less than flights with connections, price doesn't necessitate us flying with a stop.

This is also a short trip. We're flying in on Saturday (wanted to land around noon) and flying out on Tuesday (wanted to fly out as close to 4 pm as possible). We hope to fit in a half day at the parks each of those days. For childcare reasons we can't leave the house earlier on Saturday or arrive home later on Tuesday. For this trip, flying with a stop would mean losing the option to spend those 2 half days in the parks.

 

[georgina]

I have a flight booked on SW from PIT on a Thursday and got a half decent price of $109 per person. I haven’t booked the return yet and it’s stressing me out!! The nonstops are from $215-295 per person on a Saturday June 22 the they haven’t budged. I only have 3 month til we leave. I was trying to figure out what was major event was going on in Pit but there isn’t any. I’m not sure what SW is trying to pull but it’s really ticking me off. Those prices are like traveling during a major holiday. I’m about to get a twitter account and write them and say hey what’s the deal. Really frustrating!!

We are returning to PIT on June 22 from another destination. The rates for just that day were really high, I wanted to use American points but this day they were 65,000 points for the one-way which was at least twice as much as every other day in the whole month! We ended up booking United, but still it was high.

 

[ScubaCat]

Just a note on this as someone who flies Southwest fairly regularly -- some of the flights were listed as sold out when they grounded the 737 max 8's. As they've reworked the schedule, they're showing back up. Technically they were cancelled and then reinstated, but that would cause them to have to refund/rebook existing reservations.

That's likely all this is.

 

[PSUGuy]

The thing about a non-stop flight is that it gives us the chance to capture the first day at WDW. We take off from PHL around 6 am, on the ground at MCO by 8:30 am or so and we're in the picture below by the time Carl opens the taps. This with a Publix stop thrown in. Connecting flights are out.

Bill From PA

 

[Darcy03231]

It's a point in contention in my household, I hate being in airports, perfectly fine with the flying, but hate being in the airport.
Husband is the opposite, hates being in the air.
I would prefer to fly nonstop to orlando, it's a 3 hourish flight. He wants to book on points on american, which just adds more time to the travel day. (on the way down we ended up with a 3 hour layover in JFK....) Our travel day down was a 12 hour travel day....I only agreed to it because it was on points.
The last time I flew non stop, I had an 8 AM flight (at an airport 10 minutes from the house) and was at Port Orleans Riverside by 1?

I told him the next trip we could book on AA points if and only if we flew out of MHT. I'm not dealing with the hassle of Logan again...

We're the opposite. We prefer to fly out of Logan. We take the bus there and back - super easy. I also find more non-stop flights out of Logan than I do out of Manchester and at better prices. We used to fly Southwest out of Manchester almost exclusively, but in the last 5-6 years we've been doing better with flight prices and times out of Logan and on other carriers.

 

[crazylady]

Interesting to see how many people think a stop is a deal-breaker. Certainly not what I expected.

I like to fly SW but if I'm driving to an airport over an hour from my house to fly them, I want a non stop flight. Otherwise, I might as well go to my home airport and get a flight with a connection from there

 

[Darcy03231]

I like to fly SW but if I'm driving to an airport over an hour from my house to fly them, I want a non stop flight. Otherwise, I might as well go to my home airport and get a flight with a connection from there

Southwest from our home airport has very few non-stops anymore, unless you're going to PHL or BWI. The ones they do have are very high priced.

We started using the airport further away because there are a lot more non-stop flights at better prices, because there's more competition. For our next trip I checked SW out of our home airport and it was going to cost just under $1000 roundtrip for two of us to fly non-stop to Tampa and the times weren't great. I was able to book a nonstop JetBlue flight roundtrip for just under $400 for both of us ($98 each way) with much better flight times at the airport further away.