I love Southwest - but really? it seems almost like airfare bait and switch

[BamaBookWench]

We always fly Southwest whenever possible and I very much appreciate all the hard work of the people of Southwest.   BUT - when booking a work trip for several staff members I ran into a problem.  I was able to book my first associate at a really good sale rate, but when I went to book another associate and my own airfare the "wanna get away" web rate had changed (almost doubled!)  This change occured over the course of 10 minutes.  As part of my employment, we have to use a particular online travel agent and I initially thought THEY were the problem, but I was quite disappointed to find out it was Southwest (maybe a program in the computer system to recognize travel agent software) that jacked the rates up.  I try to be a good steward of our travel funds and I could have waited to see if the rate drops back down to the original rate I found, but I needed to move forward with this and other plans.  I am extrememly disappointed that Southwest conducts this rate changing business especially at the drop of a hat in the middle of the day.  Free enterprise.  Supply and demand.  But jeez - you've published a price - let is stand for the entire day. 

[franktravel]

Hi 

May I suggest next time you need to purchase multiple tickets you search the price by the number of tickets you need,  this would have showed you the higher fare.  Not the answer you were looking for but that has been my experience!  

[BamaBookWench]

That's a great thought, but because of how we have to purchase (remember - this is WORK travel) I have to do each individually.  It's the "sale" fare for the same flight changing over the course of 10 minutes that reallty chaps me.    

[LindseyD · Accepted solution]

Hi  @BamaBookWench,

I can offer an explanation that will make some sense out the difference you saw.

On every flight, we have fare "buckets," and each bucket contains a certain number of seats. Once all the seats in a fare bucket have been sold, the next fare becomes available, and once all those seats are sold, the next fare becomes available and so on and so forth. While you were purchasing your seats, there could have (and probably were) others online purchasing seats at the same time, and the fare that you first got was sold out by the time you went to purchase the next ticket. 

[Giz2000]

What about paying with points?  Yesterday, I went to book a flight with points.  When I did the initial search, I had enough points to purchase both one-way fares. When I went to book the flights, one of the routes shot up almost 3000 points and I had to buy points.  Today, when I looked at the same route, the fare was back to what it was before I booked!  I would have saved some money had I waited until this morning!  How is that fair?