Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday. I know I sound like a broken record over here, but always check existing Southwest Airlines flights for price drops. If you see a price drop, you can rebook for free online and instantly get a travel fund credit good for future Southwest Airlines flights (if you booked with Southwest Airlines points, you can instantly get the difference in points redeposited back to your Southwest Airlines account). Here are a few similar posts if you want to see how much money I have saved rebooking Southwest Airlines flights over the last few months:
- June 4: PSA Reminder: Check Existing Southwest Airlines Reservations; I Rebooked & Saved $60
- February 2: PSA: Check Existing Southwest Airlines Flights for Price Drops, then Rebook
- December 9: How to Cancel Southwest Airlines Flights (Paid or Points) & View Travel Funds
Today’s rebooking spree (3 price drops to 11 existing reservations) resulted in a total of $65.99 saved.
This next step is extremely important. Every time you rebook a Southwest Airlines flight, you need to save the reservation/confirmation number, the value of the travel funds, and the expiration date. I use an Excel Spreadsheet to track my Southwest Airlines travel funds, but you can use a notepad file or old school sticky note. Whatever system you prefer, you must keep track. Southwest Airlines makes it very difficult to find out if you have any travel funds if you do not keep track on your own. As long as you use the travel funds before the expiration date, you are good. Travel can be taken after the expiration date, but if you then later cancel or change the reservation, I believe the travel funds disappear. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Lastly, please do not wait for me to write a blog post before checking your existing Southwest Airlines reservations. I check all my existing Southwest Airlines reservation every time I get a promo email from Southwest (usually Tuesday or Wednesday morning). If I do not see any price drops to my existing Southwest Airlines reservations, I do not write a blog post. That does not mean that your existing Southwest Airlines reservations did not go down in price. Always check every time you get a promo email from Southwest Airlines, even if it has nothing to do with flights you want to fly.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. If you rebooked any Southwest Airlines flights today, please let me know how much you saved. Have a great day everyone!
Thanks, was not aware of this. Is there an easy way to see if the price has dropped?
Not that I know of, you just have to manually check.
Just saved $29, thanks Grant!
BTW, the easiest way to check if the price has dropped is to click “My Account” then under My Upcoming Trips click on the flight, then click “Change,” then select the flight(s) you want to change, the new flight(s) and it will indicate whether or not there is a credit or additional amount owed if the new itineriary is selected.
I’m glad you were able to save a few bucks on your upcoming SWA trip. Your method works as well, but is requires a few extra steps. My method works if you have several trips you want to check at the same time, assuming you have detailed records of how much you paid.
Grant, what is “the travel funds”? is it points? is it $$? how do you determine its value? Thanks for your time
Travel funds are essential SWA gift cards that can be used for future travel. You cannot sell them or use them for anyone else. The funds are tied to your name.
“As long as you use the travel funds before the expiration date, you are good. Travel can be taken after the expiration date, but if you then later cancel or change the reservation, I believe the travel funds disappear. Please correct me if I am wrong.”
That’s not correct. They don’t disappear. They just come back with the same expiration date.
But there’s a more interesting case that I learned about:
If you use any payment method on a reservation that has an expiration date, and then later get travel funds on your reservation because the price dropped and you rebooked it, or you just outright cancelled, etc. then the expiration date of the travel funds will be the *earliest* expiration date of all of your payment methods used.
Now I believe Southwest (used to have?) has a system bug. When I used travel funds on my last reservation, and then later rebooked at a lower price, I checked the expiration date on my new travel funds tied to my new reservation. It told me I had a year (or at least, that’s what I wrote down. But maybe my records are wrong). But I didn’t have a year. It actually expired on the earliest expiration date of the funds I had used to book my original reservation.
So if you have a small amount of unused travel funds that expire soon, you may not want to use them! Here’s why:
I have a $5 Southwest travel fund from a flight I booked for $118 and then later rebooked at $113. This fund expires in September. Suppose I book a flight using the $5 and my credit card. A week later, the price of the flight drops by $20. So I rebook the flight, which then gives me $20 in travel funds.
Now because I used that $5 travel fund that would’ve expired in September, my new $20 travel fund *also expires in September*. But if I had not used the $5 and just booked it all with my cc instead, then my $20 would expire in a year.
So you should balance the value of your remaining funds and the time left until expiration with the probability that the flight you book will drop by more than you remaining funds, and the probability that you’d be able to use the new funds before they expire.
Dang, that’s a lot to keep track of. I’ve also contemplated using travel funds to rebook at a slightly higher price just so I could use the travel funds and earn more SWA points. I’ve yet to do that, but I thought about it. What do you think of that idea?
Well if you forsee yourself not buying another flight on SWA with “cash” before the funds would expire, then I think it makes sense.
Yes, but I fly SWA often so I haven’t given it much thought.
I did that a few months ago (rebooked with lower fare) and saved $60 total, $20 on my own ticket. I’m now trying to figure out HOW to use the funds towards a flight I want to book tonight! I’ve checked the status of the funds and it does say there’s $20 sitting there tied to my name, but it won’t give me any options on the Payment page to actually apply that amount. It just wants to put the entire ticket amount on my (new) Southwest Rapid Rewards card.
Any suggestions? I was on hold with SWA Customer Support for 20 minutes before giving up. :/
Follow these steps to redeem your travel funds: http://travelwithgrant.boardingarea.com/2015/12/09/how-to-cancel-southwest-airlines-flights-paid-or-points-view-travel-funds/
I did read that, but the problem I’m having is that a button for “Apply Travel Funds” never shows up on the Payment screen! I don’t know if it’s a fluke or what.
Might be a fluke. Can you try using a different internet browser?
Ah, you know what it was? I had just applied for the Rapid Rewards Visa, so it was prepopulating that info and not allowing me to apply any travel funds. After logging out and back in, it shows the Apply Travel Funds button…but doesn’t have that new Visa prepopulated, so I have to wait for the physical card to come before I can use it. Oh, well. At least I know I’m not crazy!
(Just wanted to post this in case someone has the same issue after applying for the Visa and trying to use it in conjunction with Travel Funds. The two don’t mix apparently!)
Thanks for sharing. Hopefully your tip helps someone in a similar situation. Have a good night!
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