A-List, Companion and Travel Credits all extended - Great Job SW!

[rpoplin]

This is fantastic news!

Link to Details Here

Tier Status & Companion Pass Benefits

• For our current A-List and A-List Preferred Members, we are extending your current earned status through December 31, 2021.

• For our current Companion Pass Members, we are extending your current earned Companion Pass benefits through June 30, 2021.

• For all Rapid Rewards® Members, we recognize that your normal flying behavior has been interrupted, limiting progress you may have been making toward qualification for A-List, A-List Preferred, and Companion Pass.  For that reason, we are giving all Rapid Rewards Members a “boost” of 15,000 tier qualifying points and 10 flight credits toward A-List and A-List Preferred status, and 25,000 Companion Pass qualifying points and 25 flight credits toward Companion Pass status.

 Travel Funds

• Previously, Customers’ travel funds that have expired or would have expired between March 1 – June 30, 2020, or travel funds that were created because of a cancellation between March 1 – June 30, 2020, had an expiration date of June 30, 2021. We are now expanding the window of funds eligible for extended expiration dates and extending the expiration date of these funds. Funds that are set to expire or funds that are created between March 1, 2020, and September 7, 2020, will have an expiration date of September 7, 2022. This gives Customers who had travel funds created in connection with this pandemic—or who won’t be comfortable traveling this summer—additional time to retake that same trip or explore a different destination. It will take our Technology Team a few days to make these changes and more details on this extension can be found here.
  
  
• Additionally, we have added a new benefit for our valued Rapid Rewards Members.  Those Members who have travel funds that are set to expire or funds that are created between March 1, 2020, and September 7, 2020, will have the option to convert those travel funds into Rapid Rewards® points at the same rate you would be able to purchase a ticket with points today. We hope this provides our Members ultimate flexibility as Rapid Rewards points never expire, never have cancel or change fees (fare difference may apply), and you can redeem your points for anyone you choose.  Our Technology Team is working to build this conversion capability, and we will be in touch when it is ready for you to use. In the meantime, you don’t need to take any action—your travel funds will be automatically extended for the two years mentioned above, and you will be able to make this conversion once we bring this new functionality to fruition.

[bec102896]

A great move for sure!

[soxfan82]

Any word on if they'll consider extending the Companion Pass thru a portion of 2022 for those who earned it early this year and already have it thru the end of 2021? I hope they consider doing this, as this is a really generous set of benefits they're offering, but the CP offer doesn't help those of us who earned it this year. 

[Tigerguy68]

The purpose of the extension of benefits is to insure that customers who have not had the opportunity to gain (or keep) their status due to COVID-19 are not harmed.  If you were able to gain (or keep) your status before the disruption in travel, then you were not harmed.  Why would the airline extend benefits for those who were not harmed?  That would be illogical.

[chgoflyer]

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@Tigerguy68 wrote:

The purpose of the extension of benefits is to insure that customers who have not had the opportunity to gain (or keep) their status due to COVID-19 are not harmed.  If you were able to gain (or keep) your status before the disruption in travel, then you were not harmed.  Why would the airline extend benefits for those who were not harmed?  That would be illogical.

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Actually, the purpose of the extension of benefits is to insure that customers who have not had the opportunity to gain, keep or use their status due to COVID-19 are not harmed.

Those who earned this year are harmed by not being being able to use their status.

[soxfan82]

TigerGuy68, from an earning standpoint you may be right, but I'm talking about it from a usage standpoint. Everyone with a Companion Pass is missing time they earned with it right now, whether you earned it in 2019 and have it thru 12/31/2020, or whether you managed to earn it in early 2020 and have it thru 12/31/2021. But an extension of the benefits to use the CP thru 6/30/2021 only benefits those whose CP expires this year. Even though all CP holders are missing the same amount of time right now to actually use their pass. So it's not really illogical...in fact, extending CP thru 6/30/2022 for those whose pass ends 12/31/2021 is just extending the same benefit to us that everyone else is getting. 

On top of that, if you already earned CP this year, you did it with 125,000 points, meaning the 25K CP bonus points they're offering to help people earn CP this year becomes irrelevant. So if we're keeping score...that's 125K points for CP instead of 100K like it is now, and no extended time to use the benefits. Double whammy for people who earned CP already this year. 

[Route68]

I am amazed that you already earned a 2021 CP pass in 2 months in 2020?!  Did you use your southwest card to buy a house?  I do agree with your point though, you are 100% right.  

[BAD]

Thank you Southwest!

[PJ_TN]

I wondered what would happen with my A List Preferred status after getting grounded by my company for several months.  I am THRILLED to hear that you are making adjustments to help the loyal following of Southwest!  I fretted over this and couldn't be happier to get the email I received tonight!

Thanks for continuing to offer the highest level of customer service!  It is why I continue to LUV SWA!

[chrisbran]

This is great info. Thank you Southwest for being awesome in these difficult times.

I have a simple question about how these changes will impact how we earn status going forward.

A-list and A-preferred seem pretty strait forward Jan 1 you will get a reset on building your status and have to the end of the year to earn and maintain that status. 

How will that work for companion pass? will the reset time still be jan 1, 2021 or am I now earning and have til the mid year 2021 to maintain my status? I can't imagine you would reset status earning on Jan 1, 2021 and then expire companion passes for those still working on them in the middle of the year?