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Credit card points refund due to Covid?

cockerel1978
Explorer C

Anyone know, I’m sure this situation is relatively in new waters, but I have a lot of southwest miles or points.  My wife and I don’t  want to travel anymore due to Covid.  It’s all over the news how transmissible it is on a plane.  I mean it’s common sense.  

 

Southwest charges you to gift points to someone else, so I was wondering, what my options are, because I’d like them to give me the cash value and call it even, then cancel my card and get a different type of rewards card.  


I already forfeited a few hundred dollars on tickets last year because we couldn’t use them by the expiration date-which seems just wrong-  when I have a friend who had a flight paid with cash with southwest, and still hasn’t used them from 2020, and still, to this day have them extended.  Somehow mine had to be used by purchased date and mine was purchased for 2020 also, which was the start of Covid.  Whatever, what’s done is done.  

 

Any info is appreciated.  Thanks.  

11 REPLIES 11

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

If I understand your question, you are asking what to do with your points. Canceling your Southwest credit card has no impact on the points in your Rapid Rewards account and those points will never expire. If you feel you will never ever fly again then you can purchase flights for other people using the points or, while you still have a Southwest credit card, you can redeem points for other things using the More Rewards program. If you do plan to someday travel just let the points sit in your account and use them when you are ready to travel again. Southwest will not pay you for your points. 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

dfwskier
Aviator A

Instead of gifting the points, you could buy tickets for other people - there's nothing to prevent that.

 

Selling points however is prohibited, and doing what you suggest gets very close to that situation.

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

cockerel1978
Explorer C

@dfwskier wrote:

Instead of gifting the points, you could buy tickets for other people - there's nothing to prevent that.

 

Selling points however is prohibited, and doing what you suggest gets very close to that situation.


I’m not selling them nor ever even suggested that. I was asking if Southwest would reimburse me, since Covid changed the game (rules) around.  Now, in order to fly, which the card was intended for, I have to gamble sitting in a closed cabin, for hours on a flight.

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

jksobonya
Aviator A

@cockerel1978 wrote:

  It’s all over the news how transmissible it is on a plane.  I mean it’s common sense.  


No it isn't. This is false. COVID - and any germ for that matter - is essentially non-transmissible on an airplane due to the air filtration system on planes which filters the air with outside air every couple of minutes. 3 top airline CEOs all agree. No major outbreaks have ever occurred as a direct result of being on a plane.  

 

With that said, you may be thinking of the news headline that Southwest CEO Gary Kelly recently tested positive with COVID. I doubt highly he got COVID from being on a plane. He was, however, at a Senate hearing testifying to the above with many other individuals, and that's likely where he got it. 

 

I hope you reconsider. 

 

As far as flights that you booked that were cancelled and not extended out to 2022, Southwest had a policy from March-September 2020 where if you cancelled your flight within that window of time your travel funds were extended out to 2022. If you cancelled your flight before or after this timeframe, your original expiration date remained. 

 

--Jessica

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

cockerel1978
Explorer C

So Jessica, now that the headlines say that they are pushing mandatory vaccines for airlines, I guess your statement that Covid on planes is FAKE news and does not happen because of the planes high quality air filtration.  That what you said, those are your own words. 

So why the vaccine mandates, if your statement is a correct fact?  

 

Or could your “subjective opinion” that your pushing on people in this forum as facts, like what your write is only the truth, happened to be wrong?

 

could the virus spread on planes or no.  You stated no.  I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just I’m here for facts, not opinions.  

 

This is the way I see it.  if these mandates do happen, and I’m not vaccinated. I can’t fly.  Now, southwest, broke the agreement.  I used their credit card to fly their flights.  I cannot fly anymore.  I should be reimbursed,   I should not have to play a game of gifting people tickets.  

 

 

 

 

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

jksobonya
Aviator A

@cockerel1978 wrote:

So Jessica, now that the headlines say that they are pushing mandatory vaccines for airlines, I guess your statement that Covid on planes is FAKE news and does not happen because of the planes high quality air filtration.  That what you said, those are your own words. 

So why the vaccine mandates, if your statement is a correct fact?  

 

Or could your “subjective opinion” that your pushing on people in this forum as facts, like what your write is only the truth, happened to be wrong?


Vaccine mandates for domestic airplane travel in the United States has been "suggested" by Fauci, but his mere suggestion doesn't mean that it is going to happen. It's not. He has already walked back his remarks by saying: 

 

“Right now, I don’t think people should expect that we’re going to have a requirement in domestic flights for people to be vaccinated,” Fauci said on CNN Monday evening. “When I was asked that question, I gave an honest answer. It’s on the table, and we consider it. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. I doubt if we’re going to see something like that in the reasonably foreseeable future."

 

--Jessica

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

dfwskier
Aviator A

@cockerel1978 wrote:

So Jessica, now that the headlines say that they are pushing mandatory vaccines for airlines, I guess your statement that Covid on planes is FAKE news and does not happen because of the planes high quality air filtration.  That what you said, those are your own words. 

 

Actually, it's not just Jessica's opinion, it is what the US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE said:

 

summarizing (it's hard to catch COVID on a plane)

 

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2020/10/dod-study-suggests-its-ver....

 

So why the vaccine mandates, if your statement is a correct fact?  

 

Maybe because they want people to hide under their kitchen tables...

 

edit add: another study about pre-Delta Covid showed the  risk of death from plane acquired Covid was 1 in 400,000 to 1-600,000

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

The transmission of virus on flights...well that's a whole thread unto itself. I'm sure the chances are > 0, but less likely overall than many other enclosed spaces might present. 

 

But anyway, regarding the mandates everyone is missing one of the points that the mandate is meant to prevent the spread overall. An infected or contagious traveler - even if they don't cause anyone else on the plane to become ill, would still be bringing the virus to wherever they travel and presumably more favorable conditions once the passenger left the plane. 

 

So for the sake of argument that risk of transmission on a flight is lower (I think it is, we talked about that already), and is obviously higher in other environments, then the mandate still has the effect of lessening overall rate of spread wherever the travelers are going. If one city is a hotspot and only vaccinated passengers fly from that hotspot, that would slow the spread overall between regions. 

 

It's hard to say though, people move around through many other methods as well, I'm not sure about travel restrictions really doing too much other than slowing things down a little.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Re: Credit card points refund due to Covid?

DancingDavidE
Aviator A
Solution

You can book flights for other people directly, no need to transfer the points by paying the tariff.

 

You aren’t allowed to sell the points to others but if you do something nice for someone and they do something nice in return, then who knows.

 

 

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