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Re: Rent car using reward points?

dfwskier
Aviator A

@bhczl wrote:

Thank you! This is the worst redemption process I have experienced.


Since More Rewards administers the process, perhaps you should complain to More Rewards.

Re: Rent car using reward points?

mmrcela
Explorer C

So after reading this entire chain of events, it is shocking to see how Southwest, being a great airline to fly, could not answer this question correctly no matter how many times they tried. You CANNOT redeem points through a car rental transaction. You can ONLY purchase a gift card for one of the car rental places to be sent to an address and then used for a car rental purchase. If you wanted to do this and send it to yourself to be used you will have to do it atleast 1 week in advance of your purchase because this is how long it takes to receive the gift card. I really hope this helps everyone and shows SW how dumb they are in reading and writing. But I do love your company when flying. Peace.

Re: Rent car using reward points?

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@mmrcela wrote:

So after reading this entire chain of events, it is shocking to see how Southwest, being a great airline to fly, could not answer this question correctly no matter how many times they tried. You CANNOT redeem points through a car rental transaction. You can ONLY purchase a gift card for one of the car rental places to be sent to an address and then used for a car rental purchase. If you wanted to do this and send it to yourself to be used you will have to do it atleast 1 week in advance of your purchase because this is how long it takes to receive the gift card. I really hope this helps everyone and shows SW how dumb they are in reading and writing. But I do love your company when flying. Peace.


No. This is not true. You CAN book rental cars, using exactly the process that was posted above:

 

You must be logged in to the Southwest website for either the steps I posted earlier or the link franktravel posted to work.

 

Log in to the Southwest website, and under Rapid Rewards, click on More Rewards. Near the upper right hand corner, under Travel click on Rental Cars. That will load a page with many rental car company gift card options, but the very first link should be Book Travel Now.  Select that, then choose Car from the top menu.

 

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Re: Rent car using reward points?

floridagrl70
Explorer C

Thank you - I was searching for answers to this question as well. Your step by step instructions were perfect. I successfully used my points to book my rental car.

Re: Rent car using reward points?

hmbsofl
Explorer C

This is absolutely insane! All of the instructions and steps provided earlier DO NOT  WORK.

After trying to figure out how to rent a car with Rewards Points through Southwest Airlines' site for several hours I gave up and finally HAD to call customer support:

 

Here's the only way to do this, which is unreal:

 
1) go to Southwest.com and log in to your Rapids Rewards account.
2) once logged on, click on RAPID REWARDS, on the top-right of the screen, shown here:
3) the click on REDEEM FOR MORE REWARDS, shown here:
4) Now, click on TRAVEL, on the top-right area menu, shown here:
5) then hover the mouse over TRAVEL and select RENTAL CAR. This will take you to ANOTHER different site (QTTRAVEL.COM) , where you can  boot the car with points.

This process SHOULD NOT be this difficult to achieve.  Get it together, Southwest!

Re: Rent car using reward points?

PDFelter
Frequent Flyer B

While I understand your frustrution, to me it is more frustrating that you would want to use points for a rental car!  I just quoted a rental car for an upcoming trip via SW site and the full size for 4 days would cost me $134.00.  If I went through the system to use my RR points for the same rental, it would cost me 37,251 points! I'd rather use those points for a flight somewhere than using them for car rental.  Doesn't seem like a very good use of your points IMO.

Re: Rent car using reward points?

chgoflyer
Aviator A

Thanks for the update. It appears that the process has changed since I posted the instructions a year ago.

 

Be aware that this service is provided by a 3rd party, dba as "More Rewards," not actually Southwest. This explains some of the complexity of the process.

 

As noted above, using points for anything other than air travel on Southwest is generally a bad idea, as the exchange rate is very unfavorable and you lose much of the value of the points.

Re: Rent car using reward points?

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@chgoflyer wrote:

 

 

As noted above, using points for anything other than air travel on Southwest is generally a bad idea, as the exchange rate is very unfavorable and you lose much of the value of the points.


I wanted to second this point - if you have too many points or want to cash out then go ahead. But if you are earning points for value, then use them for flights and probably very little else, or only things that come directly from Southwest. Any other use will have a percentage taken when the points change hands.

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Rent car using reward points?

th4129
Explorer C

hi, this is for anyone still trying to rent a car with points in 2021. the website has changed but you can still do it. And while it may not make sense to some, there are definitely conditions (ie not being able to fly due to covid, and not having a lot of cash due to covid) where using your points for renting a car makes sense.

 

1. go to southwest.com

2. click on the yellow log-in button near the top right. Log in.

3. Now click on the "RAPID REWARDS" link near the top right, right next to "SPECIAL OFFERS". This will bring up a smaller drop-down menu.

4. Click on "About Rapid Rewards", on the left, under "Program". This will take you to a Rapid Rewards overview page.

5. On the right hand side, in a narrow column you will see your available points in yellow, and under that 3 yellow plus signs, the last one is labelled "My Rapid Rewards", click the + to open that menu.

6. Now you will finally see the "More Rewards" menu, click on the blue "More Rewards" at the bottom of the menu (it turns into a box when you roll over it with your pointer).

7. Now you are on the More Rewards home page, almost there. Roll your pointer over, or click on, the word "TRAVEL" near the upper right of the page. It will turn blue and open up a drop-down menu, roll down to "RENTAL CAR" and click.

8. Voila! Now you should be able to type in your locations and dates and see your options.

Happy Booking and Safe Travels!

Re: Rent car using reward points?

jsmart377
Explorer C

Yeah, so this is not exactly true now (06/21) Here are the steps:

>Southwest.com (login to your account)

>Rapid Rewards

>About Rapid Rewards

>How to Redeem

>Redeem for More

>Explore Rewards > Car Rental

Be advised a weekly car rental will cost you on average over 100,000 points!

 

If you get stuck contact the More Rewards helpdesk @

1-800-833-4861