You will have to pay the going price for your seat the day you change it plus any change fee that might apply.

There are no change fees with Southwest. But, as noted you will pay any difference in fare. Funds are good for one year from original date of purchase.

Southwest says this.....

Not all reservations are refundable, but they are all reusable. Should your plans change, all of our fares can be applied to future travel on Southwest Airlines.

Okay, that begins to cut down the options some. Southwest is big on the "no change fees" adverts but sometimes the devil is in the details.

That seems to cut my options down to two. Their senior fares are something my wife and I would qlalify to buy. At just short of double the lowest priced ticket, those would still be in the acceptable range. Since they are fully refundable, I will wait a bit and likely go for a couple of "best -guess" tickets for the timing. Then if the baby arrives sooner or later so that the timing doesn't work we will have to fall back to plan "B" and will likely drive.

How I wish airliines were still regulated so that one could just look at prices instead of playing these games. People were not treated like pawns when there was real competition among Braniff, TWA , PanAM and all the other airlines that have been driven out of business.

But, Southwest does not charge you a change fee. With most airlines, you'd be paying the difference in fare, and for most tickets, a $150 change fee per ticket.

And in the "good old days", you were paying a lot more for airfare.

"Since they are fully refundable, I will wait a bit and likely go for a couple of "best -guess" tickets for the timing. "

Just make sure you're familiar with the terminology. The fares are not "fully refundable" but instead can be used as a creditbfor a future flight. If you don't book another flight and apply the credit, you will not get your money refunded.

<<when there was real competition among Braniff, TWA , PanAM and all the other airlines that have been driven out of business.>>

Of course the airlines mentioned did such a wonderful job of attracting customers they went broke. And I'm sure the likes of Southwest, Delta, US, American, United, Hawaiian, Alaskan and all the other airlines and the government business regulators would be intrigued to know that there is no 'real competition' nowadays.....

Wouldn't you still fly if the birth was earlier or later then expected?

I had the pleasant experience once of gettin gmoney back form Delta even after their change fee because my new schedule for returning from SFO to ATL was cheaper than my original.

Quote" --Just make sure you're familiar with the terminology. The fares are not "fully refundable" but instead can be used as a creditbfor a future flight. If you don't book another flight and apply the credit, you will not get your money refunded.

I "think" this might not be correct in this case. Check me out on reading?

The Southwest site gives me this on their definition of refundable.

"Refundable

If you cancel your flight, you are eligible to receive 100% of your ticket value as a refund to your original form of payment. Southwest Travel Funds from a previous reservation that are applied toward a Business Select Fare will be refunded as residual travel funds (RTF) since the RTF would be the original form of payment for the Business Select transaction."

Reading through, I read it as saying if I pay by credit card and cancel, they refund to the credit card. Or does the second sentence cancel the first???

Southwest Senior Fares are fully refundable.