One of our favorite things about Southwest Airlines it the ability to get points or cash back on your booked flights if the prices drop!
This means if you can book a flight, BUT later the price drops, you know you’ll have the ability to get points or cash/flight credit back.
The process for doing this is pretty simple and we have outlined it below:
1) Login to your Southwest app/website, go to the specific trip you’re checking prices for, and click CHANGE. You do NOT need to click cancel first – clicking change does everything you need!
2) Fill in the bubble confirming you’re looking at the same date and locations and click “explore options.” This doesn’t actually change anything so don’t panic that you’re doing something before you’re ready. This step just takes you to the page where you can see if prices are different.
3) Scroll through all of the flights for that day and compare the prices next to them. All flights for that day should be listed and you will be able to see if the current price is more (there will be a + sign in front of the amount), the same (it will just say +0), or less than what you paid (it’ll show a minus sign and whatever difference is between your price and the new price).
4) If the price is lower on your booked flight (or another flight that day is cheaper), select that flight and continue. There will be one more page confirming that you want to rebook at this new rate and telling you how much of a points or cash credit you will receive back in your account.
5) Click book and Southwest will automatically update the itinerary for you and deposit the difference in fares back into your account as points or a cash credit for future flights. It’s that easy!
This whole process is super fast on the app and takes maybe less than 5 minutes. Just by checking occasionally to see if flight prices have changed, you can get a few or even a lot of points back! It’s a great way to save points or cash and put them to future flights.
Two things to note…
*Flight credits in cash can be a bit of a pain if you booked the cheapest Wanna Getaway fare because they aren’t transferrable to a different person. So if you saved $25/person for your flights, that $25 can only be used by the person who the ticket was originally booked under. It can make rebooking a little annoying but it’s definitely possible! Points are thankfully much simpler and just go right back into your account no matter who the ticket was booked for.
*If you booked a Companion already on a flight through the Companion Pass, the process is a little more complicated and you will have to call Southwest, or first cancel your companion’s ticket online. So if you aren’t in a hurry to add your Companion and don’t expect the flight to fill, it may be better to add your Companion closer to the flight date and give yourself flexibility to get points/cash back easily.
This really is one of our favorite Southwest travel tricks and has saved us so many points and money!
And here’s a pic of exactly the button to click to start this as you look at your trip itinerary! This button has gotten us thousands of points back 
