Southwest Flying to Puerto Vallarta!

Just yesterday, Southwest announced that they were starting service to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This is one of the eight new routes that they put in place starting Summer 2015. This service will start June 28, 2015 and you can start booking now! While I am extremely excited to see a new international route, the service is limited and currently the only direct flight is to Orange County, California. If you don’t mind a layover, you can continue on to Portland, Reno/Tahoe, Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Phoenix, El Paso, Kansas City, and Chicago (Midway). Hopefully they will eventually add a direct flight to somewhere in Texas, Atlanta, or Baltimore to give more options to those in the mid-west and east coast.

Southwest is still awaiting government approval for this route so just keep that in mind when making your reservation. There is always a chance they do not receive the approval and your flight will be cancelled. My assumption is that there is a slim chance of that happening, but you never know. They still have over 6 months to gain this approval.

There is one flight daily from SNA to Puerto Vallarta’s Airport that leaves at 9:05am and arrives at 1:55pm. On the return, the flight leaves Puerto Vallarta at 2:50pm and arrives at SNA at 3:45pm. Right now, flights are as low as $148 from SNA to PVR and $172 from PVR to SNA. If you use points, the taxes are also pretty reasonable and will cost you $85 roundtrip.

So for about as low as $320 you can get a roundtrip flight to Puerto Vallarta. This is cheaper than other airlines so a pretty good deal. But, the best part is that if you have the Southwest Companion Pass you can pay just the taxes and a companion will you can fly with you without paying the cost of the flight! And you have the benefit of being able to change or cancel your flight with no fee – another perk of all Southwest flights.