Most of our domestic travel is done with Southwest Airlines.
Living 18 minutes from Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, we have access to dozens of Southwest flights on a daily basis. The fares are really competitive with Delta (our favourite airline), but they also offer two free checked bags per person and open seating (you choose your seat when you board). Now that we travel as a family of four, these benefits of Southwest make it our top choice for most of our flights here in the US.
Thankfully, most of our travel on Southwest is booked with points. Someday I will explain more about how we do that, and you are welcome to send us a private message if you would like to find out sooner.
But for those of you who usually have to pay cash for flights, I wanted to write a quick post about how to do that at a discounted rate.
About the Deal
If you have a membership with Sam’s Club or Costco, you can periodically buy $500 Southwest gift cards from them for only $450.
If you don’t have a membership with either of these wholesale clubs, maybe you can ask a friend to get you a gift card with their membership 🙂
In fact, at the time of this posting (April 5, 2024), Sam’s Club is offering this exact deal: https://www.samsclub.com/p/southwest-airlines-egift-card/prod26712432?xid=plp_product_1
That represents a 20% savings on a great airline!
We don’t have a Costco membership, so I don’t know how many of those gift cards you can buy at a time from them, but right now Sam’s Club has a maximum of 5 (which is a lot of travel).
Southwest also offers fare deals about once a month, so if you create a Rapid Rewards account with them and subscribe to their emails, you can find out when they happen.
These wholesale clubs might also offer discounts on other airline gift cards from time to time, but I have never seen them discounted as much as the Southwest gift cards.
Summary
Obviously, you need to do a little planning ahead to know whether or not you plan to fly Southwest for a specific trip, but when comparing airfare, we usually find Southwest to be one of the most inexpensive options, especially if you plan to bring checked bags with you.
Unless you are deep into the points and miles game like we are, this is a great way to save 20% on Southwest airfare when paying cash.
Did you know about this deal, and do you plan to take advantage of it sometime?