Hell has officially frozen over: Southwest Airlines is going into New York’s LaGuardia Airport, something Herb Kelleher used to say would never happen. Never say never, even if you’re Herb.
I live in St. Louis, but New York will always be my spiritual home, and the $99 fares sounded nice. Southwest isn’t planning STL-LGA nonstops, at least not initially, but I'm not too proud to connect. So I went to southwest.com and started planning a super summer weekend with my friends, who can no longer afford weekends at the beach.
Alas, the $99 fare is only available on Tuesday and Wednesday, so to use it you must stay either one night or at least six days. If you want a long weekend – out on Friday, back on Monday -- the best Southwest can do for you is $376 roundtrip. With taxes and fees, it’s $411.40. Ouch.
For the same weekend – July 17-20 – I found an American nonstop for $238 roundtrip, or $259.20 with taxes and fees.
If you’ve ever wondered why Southwest doesn’t distribute through online agencies, this is why: In a side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparison, American often has the lower fare.
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Thus proving the old adage - if you can hide its real price its probably an airline ticket.
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