Transferring points to someone else vs. buying them a ticket from your RR account?

[gabelogan99]

Hi, all.  I booked a trip with my wife and we got the points for it plus bonus points with the RR credit card.  The points were enough to book another round trip, but she won't be going with me the next time.  All of the points are associted with her RR account and the card's in her name but I'm an authorized user so I have my own card.  I was looking at transferring points to my RR account but it's very expensive to do that and I didn't know that at first.  But it seems like I can just make my reservation using her RR account and just put in all of my info, including "my" credit card info?  Is there something I'm missing here?  It just seems unlikely that anyone would pay a lot of money to transfer points if this was an option, but I guess there are situations sometimes where you want to book for someone but not have to "worry" about having it associated with your own account.  Will I have to log into her account to check in and stuff?  Or will everything be there for me as long as I'm sure to put in my RR number when booking?  I'm not worried about either of us receiving points for this booking since it's free--or from the looks of it less than $25 with taxes.

I'm sure someone will also encourage me to check the price from time to time to see if I might be able to get some points returned, but I'm on top of that. 🙂

The other somewhat funny thing about this is that I booked our most recent trip, the one where we got all of our points, using my RR account but it was with the credit card that's associated with her account and we still got the points--which is nice.  I'm not holding my breath waiting for the $200 statement credit though!

[DancingDavidE]

I think you have it - feel free to book your own trips from your wife's stockpile of points, including entering your own RR number (so the trip shows up in your own dashboard) and you can pay the taxes and fees with your credit card.

You can't combine points and cash/credit on the same reservation other than paying the taxes and fees.

[dfwskier]

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@DancingDavidE wrote:

I think you have it - feel free to book your own trips from your wife's stockpile of points, including entering your own RR number (so the trip shows up in your own dashboard) and you can pay the taxes and fees with your credit card.

You can't combine points and cash/credit on the same reservation other than paying the taxes and fees.

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David's got it right.

One proviso --  if you ever want to change/cancel your flight booked through your wife's account, you MUST do so from her account. The flight will show up in your RR account, not hers, so you'll need the confirmation number to do anything with your reservation in her accounht.

[SWDigits]

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@gabelogan99 wrote:
It just seems unlikely that anyone would pay a lot of money to transfer points if this was an option

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All of the bases have been covered so I'm just thinking out loud for this one part of your comment.

A potential rare mathematical scenario when it might make sense for someone to transfer points is if the person they are transferring to is just short of having enough points to redeem for a ticket -and- the person receiving the points needs to book the flight before they are able to earn via some other method like the shopping or dining programs -and- the person receiving the points doesn't think they will fly again in the next two years.

[chgoflyer]

Just one more point for clarity: When you book a paid flight, the passenger(s) earns points from Southwest for their individual flight in their own Rapid Rewards account, regardless of who pays.

If you use the Chase Rapid Rewards credit card to pay for the flight(s), the cardholder will also earn points from Chase for the total purchase. Those points are transferred by Chase to the cardholder's Rapid Rewards account at Southwest a few days following the monthly statement closing.

Anyone can use the points in their Rapid Rewards account to book travel for themselves or anyone else.

[grapefan]

To take this discussion one step further, suppose I buy a ticket for my son (using either my points or a credit card), and then he needs to cancel that flight. Does he get the travel funds or do I?

[chgoflyer · Accepted solution]

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@grapefan wrote:

To take this discussion one step further, suppose I buy a ticket for my son (using either my points or a credit card), and then he needs to cancel that flight. Does he get the travel funds or do I?

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Points and credit card are two very different things in this scenario.

When you buy a ticket using points for yourself or anyone else, if cancelled the points just go right back into your Rapid Rewards account. (And points never expire.)

If you buy a ticket for yourself or anyone else using a credit card, if cancelled the amount paid becomes Travel Funds usable only by the passenger named on the ticket. (Also note that Travel Funds expire one year from the date of purchase, and that all travel must be completed by then.)