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Baby due - HELP!

Weinbergera
Explorer C

What is the best way to approach this? 
I am due 9/1 my first born and my mom is planning to travel here to NY. Only of course if COVID-19 is controlled. We want to book her ticket but not sure how this works. What if I go early or go late? Can she change her flight last minute? What are the fees? Has anyone been in this situation and could offer any advice? We love SWA and would prefer to fly only them. 

2 REPLIES 2

Re: Baby due - HELP!

dfwskier
Aviator A
Solution

Morning, congrats on you first!

 

It's really hard to answer a question about what will happen on 9/1.

 

The rule  right now (and the most lenient ever) is that any flight can be changed to any other flight on the same route--as much as 60 days in the future -- at no additional charge. Will that rule be in place for 9/1 flights? There is no way to know.

 

Absent the above, the normal rule is that anyone may change any flight, but is subject to any fare differences in the prices of the two tickets -- and normally tickets for flights in the near future cost a lot more than tickets for purchase farther in the future.

 

Sorry, but that is the best I can do.

 

edit add: I just reread your post and can add a few things

 

1) SW never charges a fee to cancel or change a reservation

2) You can cancel or change up to your date of travel, but MUST do so NO LATER than 10 minutes pre flight time

 

Hope that helps a bit.

Re: Baby due - HELP!

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@dfwskier wrote:

Morning, congrats on you first!

 

It's really hard to answer a question about what will happen on 9/1.

 

The rule  right now (and the most lenient ever) is that any flight can be changed to any other flight on the same route--as much as 60 days in the future -- at no additional charge. Will that rule be in place for 9/1 flights? There is no way to know.

 

Absent the above, the normal rule is that anyone may change any flight, but is subject to any fare differences in the prices of the two tickets -- and normally tickets for flights in the near future cost a lot more than tickets for purchase farther in the future.

 

Sorry, but that is the best I can do.

 

edit add: I just reread your post and can add a few things

 

1) SW never charges a fee to cancel or change a reservation

2) You can cancel or change up to your date of travel, but MUST do so NO LATER than 10 minutes pre flight time

 

Hope that helps a bit.


For example, you may be able to buy one-way tickets (I recommend to buy one-way tickets for this purpose of easily changing dates of one leg or the other online through self-service) for $50 each way right now. I don't know their origin, but let's say $50 if you buy it today.

 

When things return to normal the current price may be $100 or $200 in some cases for WGA fares. There is no change fee, but if the week of the trip the current cost is $200 then you'd have to pay the difference in fare to make the change.

 

Or the fare price could still be depressed by September and the change is none.

 

One time I was running late getting to MDW for a flight to LAS with the family. There was no way. I called Southwest on the way to the airport to change the flight for all of us - moving it back an hour and a half. (Flat tire rule would have applied, but then you aren't guaranteed and we have a baby, etc...)

 

At the end of the call the representative said "Okay Mr. DancingDavidE, it looks like we owe you $50, that will be available in a travel fund..."

 

But that was lucky, it's not typical for same-day MDW-LAS tickets to be cheaper. It would make sense to expect that if you change at the last minute there will be some additional cost since the price tends to go up on most routes as the date gets closer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.