Rapid Rewards Tier Confusion

[JP66]

I have been a Southwest Customer since it was only Love Field and two other airports. I have seen so many changes at Southwest over the years. Some of the changes have been good and some not so good. ( I personally liked the plastic boarding cards.)

I cannot figure out which Southwest Partners points qualify as Tier Points. I had nearly 32,000 tier points at the beginning of December. I booked a hotel through the Southwest site with one of the partners. I earned 5000 points for my stay and they were credited to my RR account, but I missed earning A-List for another year. When I called to find out why, I was told that the 5000 points that I earned with the partner were not Tier points. I looked both before and after my stay at the hotel and could not find an explanation or a list of which points earned are tier points and which are not. I booked that stay through Southwest and paid extra for the stay because of the points that I would earn to keep my A-List. 

I am very confused and more than a little angry about this policy as well as resetting all points on December 31st.

Anyone have a solution?

Herb would be so disappointed...

[ZevSupport]

Might be best to use Contact Us below and get a written reply of the tier structure and rules from the company.

[SoCalFlyer97 · Accepted solution]

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@JP66 wrote:

I have been a Southwest Customer since it was only Love Field and two other airports. I have seen so many changes at Southwest over the years. Some of the changes have been good and some not so good. ( I personally liked the plastic boarding cards.)

I cannot figure out which Southwest Partners points qualify as Tier Points. I had nearly 32,000 tier points at the beginning of December. I booked a hotel through the Southwest site with one of the partners. I earned 5000 points for my stay and they were credited to my RR account, but I missed earning A-List for another year. When I called to find out why, I was told that the 5000 points that I earned with the partner were not Tier points. I looked both before and after my stay at the hotel and could not find an explanation or a list of which points earned are tier points and which are not. I booked that stay through Southwest and paid extra for the stay because of the points that I would earn to keep my A-List. 

I am very confused and more than a little angry about this policy as well as resetting all points on December 31st.

Anyone have a solution?

Herb would be so disappointed...

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Hello-

Unfortunately, you are correct that Southwest Hotels/RocketMiles hotel points are not Tier Qualifying Points (TQP) toward A-List; however, they do count toward Companion Pass.

To help you determine which points are TQP or not, Southwest has a handy page published. Shortly after Southwest announced the 2024 changes to Rapid Rewards, they published this page that describes which points are TQP, good toward A-List and which ones are not:

https://www.southwest.com/html/rapidrewards/eoy-tier-communication.html

Hope this helps. 

[JP66]

This is helpful for points from now forward. I wish they had posted this for 2023.

[DancingDavidE]

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@JP66 wrote:

This is helpful for points from now forward. I wish they had posted this for 2023.

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It's been posted the last several years and updated each year, you can search it on this community. 

But that doesn't help you now, but it is available to you going forward as a resource.

Hopefully a promotional offer will come your way for being so close. 

[dfwskier]

I am truly surprised that as a Southwest customer for over 50 years, that you are confused about qualifying points.

QUALIFYING POINTS have ALWAYS ONLY been earned by flying PERIOD. When the CHase CC came along, you could earn qualifiyng points by spending money on the card (last year 1500 for speending $10k -- this year 1500 for spending $5k)

You have NEVER been able to earn  qualifing points in any othe way

[JP66]

As a customer for over 50 years, I have seen changes in the RR program. You used to fly four RT or 8 flight segment to earn a free flight to anywhere. There was no A-list BS and the Early Bird add on fee didn't exist. 

In your snarky reply you admitted that there was only one way to earn tier points...through flying. Then it changed to CC points as well. So there hasn't been only one way to earn Tier points always...

Is it really that difficult to understand why anyone would believe that Partner points would now count as well? Why do Partner Points count towards a Companion Pass? Wouldn't a Companion Pass cost SWA more?

Points should be points. The bean counters at SWA are interfering with one of the founding principles of the company...Customer Service.

[dfwskier]

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@JP66 wrote:

As a customer for over 50 years, I have seen changes in the RR program. You used to fly four RT or 8 flight segment to earn a free flight to anywhere. There was no A-list BS and the Early Bird add on fee didn't exist. 

 And what does any of that have to do with your confusion about qualifying points?  Oh, and I'm not a 50+ year SW customer -- just a 46 year customer...

edit add: the A-List program came into existence 17 years ago. Have you been confused about how to achieve A-list for the entire 17 years?