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Comment by stjohnswarts | Hacker News Reader

Southwest doesn't give out its pricing information at all. Which is why hipmunk didn't have it.

It does to certain business travel platforms (search for "swabiz"), and I believe they're expanding that exposure through their integration with Amadeus. Whether they plan it make it available on consumer sites eventually, I don't know.

I'm going to make the assumption that if Hipmunk and other non-paying aggregators were to scrape their site for the pricing data, they'd get hit with a lawsuit, right?

It does to Concur.

Not very consumer friendly.

At the time when southwest cut them off, the online travel sites were expecting $5 to $10 in compensation. Offering the lowest price required trimming that cost.

News story from 2002: https://www.cnet.com/news/southwest-soars-without-travel-sit...

To trim the cost of a referral program, you shut down the referral program. Or cut the payout.

That's not a reason to stop supplying data entirely.

There are a lot of sites that I would love if they had nice free APIs. People generally don't create those without a financial benefit.

The financial benefit is getting flight bookings.

This is an API where the airline effectively charged a negative cost for use. If they decided it was too negative, why not try adjusting the price?

It works out very well for them.

Transfarency

In Southwest’s defense, you’re showing their price next to the likes of Spirit and Frontier, whose base prices do not include checked bags.

which just makes me hate southwest even more.

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