06-15-2021
04:57 PM
@TheMiddleSeat No one likes the middle seat. And you're naive if you don't think that Southwest is trying to erase points built up over the COVID year to protect their bottom line. They lost a LOT of money in 2020 and early 2021. If they continue to allow people to fly for free using all the points they accumulated, they lose a LOT more. It's time to take off the Southwest Fan-Boy hat and put on the CEO hat. My father was a General Electric-trained (under Jack Welch) business man who was hired to become a CEO of a $250 million company by their board of directors, back in the mid 1980's. Focusing on the bottom line is what he was hired to do. Slashing jobs, cutting costs, and making a nice profit for the investors. That's how businesses survive in tough times. Plus, as some other guy said in response to my post, they did devalue points 6% in March. So not only am I not off the mark, the bulls-eye is under my feet.
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06-15-2021
04:44 PM
@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+%.
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06-15-2021
04:09 PM
@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.
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06-15-2021
04:05 PM
I know prices go up with supply and demand. I'm not naive. But to go up 4-fold? No. That's price-gouging. That's taking advantage of your customer base. That's ruining trust. I've stuck by Southwest and have used their credit card faithfully since 2004. Seventeen years of loyalty and they want to wipe out nearly my last 4 years of accumulating points, and I've spent a lot of money to build up those points, for a single ticket just to New York. It's not like it's a ticket to Australia. By the way, not sure if you noticed, but I didn't say I'd stop flying Southwest. I just said I'd be getting rid of their credit card. I'll go with a credit card where points can be applied to virtually everything, not just plane tickets. And the airline's jacking-up of prices to make up for their lack of planning for a rainy day, as the saying goes, well, they're going to suffer in terms of a loss of credit card holders. I'm not the only one who is getting rid of his SW Visa credit card as a result of this.
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06-15-2021
03:43 PM
2020, COVID happens... not many people travel. My family is in NY, which is where I travel the most. Normally, a flight there costs between 28,000-36,000 points, round trip. Over the past year, I build up about 50,000 points, so I'm sitting at 150,000 points. New York City finally opens up, so I go to book a flight there today, and they are charging 55,000 points for ONE LEG of the trip. That's 110,000 points for one trip to NY. I saved up points over nearly 3 years only to find out Southwest devalued points almost 4-fold. After I spend these points, I'm getting rid of my Southwest Rapid Rewards. They clearly screw their customers to keep investors happy.
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