NEVER BUY REWARD POINTS. IT'S NON-REFUNDABLE!

[craziestjetli2]

DO NOT BUY REWARD POINTS!!!  It is non-refundable.  The reward system is run by a 3rd party and not SW, so SW will not refund you.

The cost for points is more than the actual worth of ticket value in cash/credit card.  Save yourself the money and headache and just purchase the flight with cash/credit card.  You have more power to dispute if there is a mistake.

[TheMiddleSeat]

Purchasing points is useful for when you are trying to redeem your existing RR points towards a flight, but are short a few points.  You can purchase the few remaining points and then redeem all your points towards a free flight.  The option to purchase points is not meant as an alternative to directly purchase a flight using a credit card on southwest.com.  As you noted, you will pay much more for the flight if you buy 100% of the points needed versus just paying for the flight.

[DancingDavidE]

Which I think should be obvious - if you have Path A to buy direct from Southwest, compared to Path B where another person handles the transaction as a business, of course Path B will be more expensive than Path A.

Great option to top off some points to get a reward flight, especially if your reward points were going to expire soon and you needed to use them.

Not recommended to purchase points for the majority of a ticket.