Big news broke today that Southwest Airlines flights now appear in Google Flights search results. The airline’s flights still do not appear on other third-party travel sites like Expedia or Priceline.
The manual searching on Southwest was always a pain. It’s also much easier now to track price drops and rebook at the lower price by using the price tracking feature built into Google Flights. Big win for consumers.
Hopefully they soon show up on Amex Business Platinum so we can redeem the rewards towards Southwest flight tickets
such a long-awaited change!
This is great. One less portal to search flights for. Hope this doesn’t increase their expenses much.
That’s a shocker! The world will never be the same.
seems like you can’t set up price alerts when selecting only southwest flights. the “Track prices” checkbox disappears.
This is good news because I stopped checking on the SWA website & app and just assumed the price was more expensive than the other airlines that showed up in Google Flights. Hopefully Points Path can add SWA as an option soon too.
I still SW to be quite expensive compared to other carriers. Very few routes they are cheaper.
It can be misleading. Google shows basic economy fares. Southwest gives you free checked bags. Once you add options to pick seats or check bags or whatever else it changes the math.
there seems to be specific routes that they have bigger presence in, like smaller airports, that make their flights potentially cheaper and/or more convenient depending on how far those airports are located to the city. for example dallas and houston in texas both have 2 airports each, and for me it’s more convenient to fly to the smaller airports, which only southwest has direct flights to and from (ignoring airlines like frontier and spirit ofc).
Didn’t it previously show something like third party airline
Is there a reason why they weren’t on Google flights in the first place ?
They infamously have been reticent to give anyone else access to their fares, preferring to keep everything in house. Other airlines generally show up on Google flights because their fares are published in the global distribution systems (which travel agencies use to book tickets).
I hope this doesn’t mark the end of SW
I just booked a round trip ticket to Chicago for August a week ago for a measly $104 on those annual Wanna Get Away Summer specials that Southwest usually runs
On top of that , Costco discounts for SW gift cards. This could actually be worrisome because this is a great airline and I hate to see it turn sour real fast in the upcoming future
As a former A-Lister, I am of the opinion that Southwest has accelerated their downward spiral ever since founder, Herb Kelleher, passed five years ago. Not that he was running the show in the 2010s, but I think for the most part, his successors maintained his vision. But with him gone, the only thing they’re concerned with is their bottom line.