sphiatt
07-18-2000, 10:19 AM
I hadn't thought of this as an amazing deal for some reason, until I saw Apex's post on 7/18's deals page for Southwest's Internet Deals. I've been flying for FREE on SWA for about a year and 1/2 now. It only works as 100% free for short trips, but it still nice for little vacations and weekend getaways. Heres what to do:
1) Keep an eye on SWA's Internet Specials and pick up the really cheap tickets. This week I'm booking a r/t flight for my wife and I from Salt Lake City to Boise ID. Total cost: $36 each way for two = $144 + taxes = $160 in total. Then I book on-line and pay the $160. At the end of the on-line booking/payment process (for all you first-time SWA flyers w/o the PLASTIC SWA Frequent Flyer Card) there is a link to get your SWA Frequent Flyer Card. Take that link and request an ACTUAL PLASTIC CARD be mailed to you. (This Deal WILL NOT work with one of those lame paper cards you get at the gate which look like subway club cards).
2) Get your frequent flyer card in the mail and present it at the gate or at check in both going out and returning on your flights, this will earn you 1 credit each way normally, but is doubled for on-line booking, so in my case for the $160 r/t flights I earned 2 credits each way for both my wife and I = 8 frequent flyer credits for the trip.
3) You need 16 credits for a FREE flight from SWA, which they mail you automatically when you get to 16. All you have to do is book two more R/T tickets for say $50 or so each way (I can get to L.A., Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Seatle or Oakland for this or less with the on-line specials) and your total cost is about $300-$350 all together, or less, for the 4 r/t tickets you just used and flew.
4) Take that free ticket (which is 100% transferable) and sell it on Ebay for $350!! I've done this 3 times already and paid a total of about $1,000 for 12 r/t flights in the past 18 months, but have also sold 3 (1 for every 4 flights) free tickets on Ebay for $1,000 in cash as well!
Basically the value of a swa credit on ebay is 1/16 of say $320 (be conservative)= $20, so anytime you can book a r/t flight for around $80 (since each r/t booked on line = 4 credits) you are getting the flight for free. Of course you CAN book the $100 flights and end up netting $20 out of pocket for the flight, which is still pretty good.
I'm not sure how much longer the double credit on-line promotion will go, its been that way since I started doing this though and is always extended each time it is set to expire. This deal is also sweet if you fly for business, you basically earn very fast, free tickets.
1) Keep an eye on SWA's Internet Specials and pick up the really cheap tickets. This week I'm booking a r/t flight for my wife and I from Salt Lake City to Boise ID. Total cost: $36 each way for two = $144 + taxes = $160 in total. Then I book on-line and pay the $160. At the end of the on-line booking/payment process (for all you first-time SWA flyers w/o the PLASTIC SWA Frequent Flyer Card) there is a link to get your SWA Frequent Flyer Card. Take that link and request an ACTUAL PLASTIC CARD be mailed to you. (This Deal WILL NOT work with one of those lame paper cards you get at the gate which look like subway club cards).
2) Get your frequent flyer card in the mail and present it at the gate or at check in both going out and returning on your flights, this will earn you 1 credit each way normally, but is doubled for on-line booking, so in my case for the $160 r/t flights I earned 2 credits each way for both my wife and I = 8 frequent flyer credits for the trip.
3) You need 16 credits for a FREE flight from SWA, which they mail you automatically when you get to 16. All you have to do is book two more R/T tickets for say $50 or so each way (I can get to L.A., Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Seatle or Oakland for this or less with the on-line specials) and your total cost is about $300-$350 all together, or less, for the 4 r/t tickets you just used and flew.
4) Take that free ticket (which is 100% transferable) and sell it on Ebay for $350!! I've done this 3 times already and paid a total of about $1,000 for 12 r/t flights in the past 18 months, but have also sold 3 (1 for every 4 flights) free tickets on Ebay for $1,000 in cash as well!
Basically the value of a swa credit on ebay is 1/16 of say $320 (be conservative)= $20, so anytime you can book a r/t flight for around $80 (since each r/t booked on line = 4 credits) you are getting the flight for free. Of course you CAN book the $100 flights and end up netting $20 out of pocket for the flight, which is still pretty good.
I'm not sure how much longer the double credit on-line promotion will go, its been that way since I started doing this though and is always extended each time it is set to expire. This deal is also sweet if you fly for business, you basically earn very fast, free tickets.