Southwest is out with its latest fare sale, with fares from just $59 one-way (or less than 3k points) on a variety of routes for flights booked by 4/20/17. Here is an example of a low end fare (in points), between Washington, DC and Indianapolis:
As you can see, that round is just 5,994 points and $11.20 round trip. I saw a few other decent values in this week’s sale, such as Albany, NY to Denver, Colorado nonstop for $118 or 6,908 Rapid Rewards points one-way:
And while weekend prices are often a bit higher, this route was even quite reasonably priced as a weekend trip, with a Friday-Sunday in October coming in at just 15,376 points and $11.20 (or $258 round trip), nonstop:
That compares pretty favorably to the competition, with weekend options all involving connections and starting at $403 — and unless you’re a credit card holder or an elite member, bags don’t fly free:
Of course, if you have a companion pass, the value over alternatives there is incredible — at a net cost of less than 7,700 points each round trip plus $22.40 in taxes, that’s hard to beat. American, of course, has no save availability on Friday/Sunday, so it would be 60,000 miles per person round trip to fly American:
Also remember to check your existing reservations — if the prices have dropped, you can get the difference refunded. The process is simple — just click to “change” your flight and select the new flight you want. You can even select the same exact flight you already have — if it has dropped in price, you will be refunded the difference. Here’s an example of a time I did that:
As you can see, my new ticket total (6,656 points) was less than the exchanged ticket total (9,536 points), so I received a refund of 2,880 points. Those points go directly back into your account and can be used immediately (and have no expiration beyond normal program terms). If you do this with a paid ticket, you will receive Southwest credit that will be good for 1 year from the date that you originally made your booking.
See a link to the full sale here and search availability a month at a time here (just change the city pairs and month).