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Re: Rapid Rewards Rip-Off

dfwskier
Aviator A

@RyanT wrote:

@dfwskier - I appreciate the comments, but that doesn't help me for a trip in late July. Normally 5-week's lead time is standard for domestic travel for me. 
As I said above in response to another commenter, this is nothing other than price-gouging by Southwest.  A way to clear out the points accumulated by long-time customers. 


Are other reputable airlines (ie   not Frontier, Spirit  or  Allegiant) offering better prices? My guess is not.  If so, book one of them and hold on to your points.

 

 IMO the only reason to have a Southwest credit card is to earn points toward Companion Pass, and not for any other reason..

 

I prefer cash. I get 2x points on all purchases with a citi 2x card and up to 5x points on rotating categories by quarter from either Chase or Discover.

 

As i said, gimme the cash.

Re: Rapid Rewards Rip-Off

PDFelter
Frequent Flyer B

@dfwskier " IMO the only reason to have a Southwest credit card is to earn points toward Companion Pass, and not for any other reason.."

 

Agree that we use the card to earn points toward companion pass, but you also get the benefit of all those points accumulating to use for the companion pass holder to fly free also. 🙂  I highly value the points I get for just buying every day items that I would be buying anyway that allows our family to take many more vacations because we don't have to pay cash for the flights!  Huge plus, even if you don't obtain the coveted companion pass!

Re: Rapid Rewards Rip-Off

jksobonya
Aviator A

@RyanT wrote:

 Normally 5-week's lead time is standard for domestic travel for me. 


We are not in normal times though. You can't expect everything to be as it was pre-COVID right now. It's going to take years for airlines to get back to "normal". Last I read, most airlines think it will take until 2023 to have "normal" traffic again.  

 

--Jessica

Re: Rapid Rewards Rip-Off

bwallet
Frequent Flyer A

To be fair, in April, Southwest did devalue Rapid Rewards Points 😡 without any advanced notice 😡😡. However, the devaluation was only 6%, not 75%. 

Re: Rapid Rewards Rip-Off

RyanT
Explorer C

@bwallet They may have published 6%, but when you raise the rates of flights drastically in a price-gouging effort to take advantage of summer travelers and COVID restrictions being lifted, the devaluing becomes negligible.  The buying power of each point dropped 300+%. 

Re: Rapid Rewards Rip-Off

bwallet
Frequent Flyer A

@RyanT Prices as I have seen them are still significantly below where they were two years ago. Every flight that I've been on recently has been either full or mostly full. Matching the price to the market is not gouging. Besides, Southwest is working to return to profitability after losing a LOT of money recently.