Southwest Fall Fare Sale 2026: Under $100 Nonstops, Blackout Dates and the September 24 Deadline
Offer ended September 25, 2026. Southwest is selling one-way nonstop fares under $100 for travel from October 13, 2026 to March 3, 2027, with booking closing
By Vamsi, RewardsGuru.club. Published September 22, 2026.
This offer ended on September 25, 2026. Southwest's fall fare sale closed at 11:59 p.m. Pacific on September 24, 2026. The blackout dates and terms below are a record of that sale, not a live offer.
Southwest is running a fall fare sale with one-way nonstop fares under $100, and it closes at 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Thursday, September 24. The travel window runs from October 13, 2026 to March 3, 2027, which is nearly five months of winter travel, and the fine print is where the sale earns its price.
Twelve dates are blacked out. Read that list before you plan anything, because it removes almost every day you would actually want in late November and at Christmas.
The terms, as Southwest writes them
Straight from the booking page:
- Book by 11:59 p.m. Pacific on September 24, 2026.
- 21-day advance purchase required. From a September 24 booking, that puts your earliest travel around October 15.
- Travel valid October 13, 2026 to March 3, 2027.
- Continental U.S. and interisland Hawaii only. No mainland to Hawaii, no international.
- Nonstop service only. A connecting itinerary does not get the sale fare.
- Nonrefundable, with "seats, days, and markets limited."
The blackout list is the sale
Southwest blacks out these dates: November 24, 25, 28 and 30; December 23, 26, 28 and 30; January 2 and 4; January 18; and February 15.
Line those up against the calendar and the pattern is obvious. November 24 and 25 are the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and November 28 and 30 are the Saturday and Monday after it. December 23 and 26 bracket Christmas, December 28 and 30 cover the week between the holidays, and January 2 and 4 are the return days from New Year. January 18 is the Sunday of the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, and February 15 is the Sunday of Presidents Day weekend.
In other words, the sale covers the five months minus the eleven or twelve days that everyone wants. That is not a trick, it is how every airline sale works, but it means the honest question is whether your trip is a holiday trip or an ordinary one. If you are flying home for Thanksgiving, this sale is not for you. If you are taking a January weekend somewhere warm, it might be the cheapest fare you see all winter.
What "under $100" is actually buying
Southwest now sells four fare types: Choice Extra, Choice Preferred, Choice and Basic. Sale fares of this kind sit at the bottom of that ladder, so check what you are getting before you judge the price, in particular the bag allowance and whether the fare earns Rapid Rewards points at the rate you expect.
The one Southwest quirk worth remembering is that the airline still lets you cancel a cash fare for travel funds in most cases, but a sale fare described as nonrefundable is exactly that. If your plans are soft, price the difference between the sale fare and the next one up before you save the forty dollars.
Booking with points rather than cash does not dodge the taxes. Southwest's own note on the page: "Points bookings do not include government fees from $5.60 per one-way flight."
Paying for it with points
Southwest prices award seats off the cash fare, so a sale fare is also a cheap award. That is the part people forget: when the dollar price drops, the points price drops with it, which makes a fare sale the best moment to spend Rapid Rewards rather than hoard them.
Two transfer routes reach Rapid Rewards at full value. Chase Ultimate Rewards moves 1:1, and so does Bilt. Our data values Rapid Rewards at about 1.3 cents a point, which is strong for a domestic programme. Two routes to avoid: Marriott Bonvoy at 3:1 and World of Hyatt at 25:12 both hand back far less than they take.
Southwest's own cards run from the Rapid Rewards Plus at $99 to the Priority at $229, and all of them count toward the Companion Pass, which remains the single best reason to hold one. A fare sale is not a reason to open a card, but if you are already chasing the pass, cheap fares make the qualifying spend cheaper.
If you would rather fly somewhere further, Delta is running an award sale that also ends this Thursday, with round trips from 12,800 miles, and we pulled every route in that piece. For the cards that earn transferable points in the first place, our best travel cards comparison is the place to start.
The rule
Check the blackout dates first, the advance purchase second, and the fare type third. If your dates survive all three, this is a good fare and it disappears Thursday night. If they do not, wait, because a sale that excludes your travel days is not a sale for you.
Terms above are from Southwest's booking page as of September 22, 2026.
Related articles
- Southwest's New Fall Sale Ends October 1. Check the Day of the Week First.
- If You Think Southwest's "Holiday Travel Included" Sale Puts Christmas Week on Sale, You May Be Wrong: Cleveland to Denver Was $109 on Christmas Eve and $322 on December 29, the First Day Back the Fine Print Allows
- If You Think You Missed Southwest's $59 Holiday Fares on October 12, You May Be Wrong: The Same Sale Is Back Through October 29, and 5,555 of 6,424 Routes Are Within $10
- If You Think Southwest's Up to 40% Off Sale Always Gets You the Cheapest Seat, You May Be Wrong: On Los Angeles to Honolulu, the Regular Nonstop Was Cheaper
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