Southwest Airlines offers various sales and promotions throughout the year, including flash sales, which are typically offered for a limited time period, ranging from a few hours to a few days. These sales offer discounted fares on select flights, making it a great way to save money on air travel.
Last week they featured a sale on flights that departed either before 8 a.m. or after 7 p.m. Those flights are usually the least expensive ones anyway as there are significant challenges to getting to the airport very early in the morning or when arriving at your destination late in the evening.
This newest sale is good until 10/26 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time has an interesting twist. As the picture says, “Thanksgiving Included”
The time around Thanksgiving and Christmas is a peak travel period, and finding inexpensive airfare during this time can be quite a challenge. The airlines are aware of the high demand and take advantage of it, pricing their flights higher than usual. Additionally, the days around the holidays are some of the busiest travel days of the year, which means that flights get booked up faster and prices go up even more.
Most sales specifically exclude the holidays but this one says that it’s included. But the devil is always in the details and Southwest is playing with what people think about when planning holiday travel.
The first provision of the fare sale is that travel is only valid on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This makes it difficult to include Thanksgiving, which is always on a Thursday. In addition, Continental U.S. travel is blacked out on November 21 through November 22, 2023 and December 26, 2023 through January 2, 2024.
As a reminder, Thanksgiving is on November 23rd.
There is one major exception to the excluded dates. November 23, November 24, December 24, December 25, and December 31, 2023, are included for continental U.S. travel.
So Southwest isn’t lying when they say that Thanksgiving is included in the sale. So are Black Friday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. In order to get the best prices, you have to be willing to fly ON the holidays.
Nobody traveling to see family or friends wants to fly on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Typically, they leave the weekend before the holiday or on Monday through Wednesday. Southwest has blocked those same dates from the sale.
There are additional restrictions for flights to certain airports and for international travel which you can find on the website for the sale. Southwest also says that advertised fares may be available on other days of the week, but that’s not guaranteed.
In conclusion, if you have travel planned for a Tuesday or Wednesday (but not during a holiday week) or want to travel on the actual holiday days, there are some inexpensive Southwest flights available.
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