Most of southwest customers are regional hopper flights, unless you are doing consistent long flights with business cost you are loosing "points/credits" when compared to the old program. My purchases from now on will be extremely devalued when compared to the old system. I easily fly once a month in regional flights, but now it's going to take me 1.5 times as long to earn a "free flight" as an early purchaser. Before i could have purchased a seat with the free flight credit, AT ANY TIME, which is especially useful in case of emergencies which i have had to do in more than one occasion. I could care less about blackout dates, the only improvement they could have really done is make sure the points don't expire, the blackout dates would have been an extra. I am not at all happy with the new system and will be looking at other airlines for less expensive flights because the "rewards" value is not longer of value to me. Your goal before was to reward loyal customers, now you just reward based on dollars. I will earn just as many points, in terms of value, with SWA as with other airlines. The new system is not simple, not easy, devaluing, disheartening to loyal regional hoppers and quite frankly not wanted. I was greatly considering the SWA credit card but now i have 3 reasons i will never get a credit card with SWA 1) rewards system, not a fan and will not support it, 2) yearly fee, 3) chase bank (it's like the cherry on top). Great job of deterring frequent regional hoppers to use your airline SW, if that was your goal you've done a great job. Congratulations on becoming like every other airline. Apparently you've worked really hard at it to come up with this convoluted system. BTW, if you were loosing too much money you could have just upped the credits required for a free flight to 18 or 20. That would have been preferred rather than this new system you have come up with. You really need to work on your customer LOYALTY program that you've now screwed up.
... View more