Fly with Southwest

My favorite airline is Southwest. Sure it's a really cheap airline, and they stop way too many times on certain flights. Here are the huge benefits though of flying Southwest:

- They allow you to change your flight online, with no penalty!

- If you cancel your flight, they give you a credit which expires in a year. Better than nothing (with most airlines)!

- They have web only deals; make sure to book early. You can also use "Southwest Shortcuts" if you are flexible w/ dates: http://www.southwest.com/cgi-bin/lowFareFinderEntry

- You can sit anywhere you want on the plane. This is great if you travel alone.

- They only fly ONE type of plane: Boeing 737 for the curious. What does this mean? All their pilots know how to fly it, so if they have to change pilots, they can do so very quickly. This happens a lot in the airline industry, and if you have a pilot who can't operate a particular plane due to a takeover, there's either a delay (to find another pilot who can) or the flight is completely cancelled. This is common for a lot of airlines that use a variety of different airplanes. Not with Southwest. Of all the years I've taken Southwest, I've never experienced delays (except due to weather).

I recently flew to Los Angeles from San Jose using Southwest, and I had about $60 in credit that I had been holding from 2 months ago, from a cancelled flight I made. I used the credit, and my flight came out to be only $30 total. I can't complain about that, especially since I made the flight arrangements at the last minute. Since the flight is only really 30 mins long (it takes 10 mins to taxi when taking off and arriving), it was a pretty painless experience overall.

Rental Car

I recently rented a vehicle for work reasons, but my company is very frugal so I wanted to find the best deal I could get. Apparently getting a SUV is the hardest to rent, but it was the size that I needed. I usually rent from Enterprise because they are friendly and pick you up for free. What I did first however, was go to retailmenot.com to find an online coupon. I was able to find one that took 25% off my rental price. Awesome. I then proceeded to get the light SUV for $60/day. I only needed it for one day. On the day of the rental, I called to have them pick me up. It took them 2 hours to pick me up because they were so busy, and half of their crew was on vacation. The manager felt sorry for me and gave me another 25% discount on top of my rate, and I could return it w/ 1/4 tank full of gas (it was already at 1/2 tank). On top of that, he ran out of SUV's, so he upgraded me to a cargo van (which was bigger than I needed, but at the same rate, I said ok). So all in all, I spent $44 on a cargo van rental where I didn't have to fill up the gas! What a deal. I know this may not happen to everyone, but I wanted to share my experience in case something like this happens.

Airport Parking

At most major airports, there are offsite long term parking alternatives that are CHEAPER than the in-house airport parking. If you can save money why not? You are just parking your car in a secured lot and pretty much the only difference between airport and non-airport is a 2 min longer ride on the shuttle bus.

Here's money you save and I myself was guilty of overpaying. SFO for 5 days was about $75 at Park N'Fly at San Francisco Intl. It's also $75 at the airport. BUT if you prepay online its only $53 at Park N'Fly. A HUGE savings of $23 dollars. The only reason I paid full price was due to a family miscommunication. The best part is Park N'Fly is in a more convenient location just a block from the freeway entrance. Good for when you want to get home ASAP after a long day travelling.