Southwest offers $49 flights from Milwaukee
Deal hunters, get ready. Southwest’s broad twice-ayear blockbuster fare sale is back, dropping round-trip fares below $100 on dozens of the carrier’s shortest routes.
The sale also includes longer routes, with the price of flights loosely tied to distance. Flights begin at $49 each way on Southwest’s shortest routes and increase to $79, $99 or $129 each way for longer flights. Domestic fares included in the sale appear to top out at $154 each way.
From Milwaukee, the $49 one-way fares are available for travel to Kansas City, Mo., Cleveland and Nashville. (The Cleveland and Nashville service from Milwaukee begins Nov. 4.)
The next cheapest one-way fare from Milwaukee is $69 to Boston Logan International and New York LaGuardia, followed by $75 one-way to Dallas Love Field and $79 one-way to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Southwest is the market share leader at Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport. The Dallas-based carrier held 41% of the market as of August, the most recent month for which data is available.
Southwest established service at Mitchell in 2009. Mitchell is owned and operated by Milwaukee County.
The Southwest sale launched Tuesday morning covers travel from Oct. 31 through Dec. 19 and from Jan. 3 through Feb. 14. Flights on Fridays and Sundays are excluded. For Florida and Nevada flights, sale fares are good only Sunday through Wednesday for inbound flights and Tuesday through Friday for outbound flights.
The sale fares apply specifi-
cally to nonstop options, though many connecting itineraries also show lower-than-usual fares.
Fares on some routes appeared to be even lower than the advertised $49 early Tuesday morning. Some dates between Los Angeles and Albuquerque, N.M., for example, were showing on the carrier’s website at just $45 each way — or about $90 round-trip. Some Houston-New Orleans roundtrips were available for even less, at about $83.
Southwest’s new international routes are also included in the sale, though those routes come with significantly more restrictions.
Fares range from $59 each way (Fort Lauderdale to Belize) to $262 each way (BaltimorePunta Cana, Dominican Republic), depending on the route. But those prices are offered only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. For those who can jump through those hoops, Southwest’s sale covers international flights from Oct. 31 through Dec. 13 and from Jan. 10 through March 2. The sale fares are blacked out for international travel on Nov. 21 and 22.
Either way, bargain seekers will have to act quickly to snag the fares. The sale ends Thursday at 11:59 p.m. local time in the city of the departing flight.
The broad fare sale has become a staple for Southwest. It has rolled out similar three-day sales each June and October for the past several years. One sale from June 2015 proved so popular that it crashed Southwest’s website, prompting the carrier to extend that particular sale by an additional 24 hours.
Southwest has used the sales to generate buzz and — perhaps more importantly — to sell seats during what are usually some of the slowest travel periods of the year.
When compared with other fare sales in the United States, Southwest’s are notable for their broad coverage and liberal availability of its cheapest fares. The latest sale is similar, though there seem to be a few differences compared with the company’s most-recent offerings.
Another hallmark of the twice-a-year Southwest sale is the seemingly high number of seats that the carrier will sell at its lowest sale fares — meaning the at least some flights are likely to continue being offered at the lowest price through the end of the sale.