I got an email from Southwest this afternoon with information about a change in the way that Southwest Rapid Rewards are valued. The email was a newsletter with a link to some “important news” for Rapid Rewards members
From the press release:
Beginning April 17, 2015, the number of Rapid Rewards Points needed to redeem for certain flights will vary based on destination, time, day of travel, demand, fare class, and other factors. However, there are still many flights which will stay at the current redemption rate. And don’t forget that when fares go on sale, so do the points needed for redeeming for a reward flight on those fares.
So….. what does that mean?
Well…. I don’t know. But I do know that intentionally vague press releases by company are rarely good for us. If you’ll remember, Southwest devalued their currency from a point being worth 1.67 cents (60 points per $1 of fare) to 1.43 cents (70 points per $1 of fare). Southwest has a (pseudo-) fixed rate of Rapid Rewards, though it’s not QUITE 1.43 cents
(SEE ALSO: How much are Southwest Rapid Rewards points REALLY worth?)
The reason for that is that the points required are based on the cost of the BASE fare, excluding any airport taxes and fees
(SEE ALSO: Comprehensive guide to Caribbean airport taxes and fees)
Which is why for our recent trip to somewhere warm, we chose to go to Puerto Rico, because it galled me to have to pay $100 (times 2!) for my “free” tickets.
I see now that Mommy Points and Travel Summary have also covered this story. Some of the comments / speculation in those posts are interesting – at this point, nobody really knows what’s going to happen, though again, I doubt it’s good.
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Groan. Something tells me Orlando is on the list for popular destinations for SW.
Seriously thiugh, there are probably like 20% of their routes where 50% of the point usage is concentrated. Everyone and their mother at Disney has the southwest cards to pay for flights or orlando.
I so use points a lot on southwest. And I move my flights around quite a bit as I see better deals come up living in Cinci gives a lot of options for southwest flights, and I’ll tyicslly do the most affordable between Lou,IND, COL, and DAY. Since I roll 4 deep saving on multiple tickets is better than saving 3 minutes by flying out of DAY.
I totally agree. It will be interesting to see what they have to say when they actually release some details