Southwest Rapid Rewards - Expiration date for RR1.0 Award is actually 1-day earlier

Today, I was researching to use one RR1.0 Standard Award, with an Expiration Date of August 5, 2012. Southwest's online system (Where are my old Awards?) will allow me to book one-way flights up through August 4; however, if I select a one-way flight for August 5, the screen does not display the screen with award availability bubbles--instead, the screen prompts me to select a flight for pricing, as a normal purchase. I verified that August 5, 2012, is not a blackout date. Has anyone observed that an award can not be booked for the expiration date, but only up to 1-day earlier?

Today, I was researching to use one RR1.0 Standard Award, with an Expiration Date of August 5, 2012. Southwest's online system (Where are my old Awards?) will allow me to book one-way flights up through August 4; however, if I select a one-way flight for August 5, the screen does not display the screen with award availability bubbles--instead, the screen prompts me to select a flight for pricing, as a normal purchase. I verified that August 5, 2012, is not a blackout date. Has anyone observed that an award can not be booked for the expiration date, but only up to 1-day earlier?

Are you sure there is standard award availability for Aug. 5? While there are no blackout dates, standard awards are capacity controlled and seats are limited. Aug. 4 is a Saturday and typically you are going to have much better luck using SA's on Saturdays than Sundays.

In any case, call up Southwest and ask them if there is any SA availability on Aug. 5, and if so, ask why you can't book it.

Has anyone observed that an award can not be booked for the expiration date, but only up to 1-day earlier?

I'm pretty sure ftnoob has reported this, and I have experienced it. It's one more case where the software developers made a seemingly minor error and nobody bothers to fix it.

IIRC, you can book your award on the expiration date by phone only. Obviously that eliminates any possibility of constructing a custom A-B-C connection.

I've discussed privately with nsx the fact that I ran into this issue and was sure I'd seen it mentioned by someone in the forum, but wasn't having success finding it. I need curbcrusher or the person who posted it to bail me out.

In any event, if you have a full Award (or half an Award and you are willing to use 9,600 points to make it a full Award), this is currently a non-issue. Just run it through A+ (AirTran) and get a fresh one year validity.

BTW, as part of the RR 2.0 conversion, SWA's programmers made an undisclosed change regarding Award validity: Awards now expire one year from the day before they are issued, rather than on the one year anniversary of issuance. That problem is also currently moot thanks to A+ laundering.

Cool - thanks for the A+ reminder, ftnoob.

Thank you for your replies.

There may be 2 related problems for this thread.

My award E-Mail was issued on August 6, 2011, and displays that the award expires on Sunday, August 5, 2012. That seems to be the 1-day problem previously reported. Unfortunate but visible.

However, my complaint is that now the system will not display the award bubble (radio button) screen for August 5. Not even a blank bubble screen, showing no award availability with no selectable bubbles--it simply displays the normal purchase screen with prices. Only for Saturday, August 4, and earlier, can I see the award availability bubbles.

An interesting problem, but possibly moot, since I'm also seeing almost NO availability for Sundays in July for my possible destinations. So, August 5 is probably empty anyway. However, if I decide to pursue the August 5 date, I will call Southwest, and plead my case.

The August 5 trip would be PDX-LAX (involving 1-stop), if someone can check availability. I know that this check availability option is available in another thread on this forum.

NOTE: I don't have enough points for the suggested A+ switch back & forth scheme.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your replies.

There may be 2 related problems for this thread.

My award E-Mail was issued on August 6, 2011, and displays that the award expires on Sunday, August 5, 2012. That seems to be the 1-day problem previously reported. Unfortunate but visible.

However, my complaint is that now the system will not display the award bubble (radio button) screen for August 5. Not even a blank bubble screen, showing no award availability with no selectable bubbles--it simply displays the normal purchase screen with prices. Only for Saturday, August 4, and earlier, can I see the award availability bubbles.

An interesting problem, but possibly moot, since I'm also seeing almost NO availability for Sundays in July for my possible destinations. So, August 5 is probably empty anyway. However, if I decide to pursue the August 5 date, I will call Southwest, and plead my case.

The August 5 trip would be PDX-LAX (involving 1-stop), if someone can check availability. I know that this check availability option is available in another thread on this forum.

NOTE: I don't have enough points for the suggested A+ switch back & forth scheme.

Thank you very much.

The first two of the day have availability.

6:10 AM 9:45 AM 2613/3327 1 stop Change Planes SMF 3:35
6:50 AM 10:10 AM 1100 1 stop No Plane Change 3:20

My award E-Mail was issued on August 6, 2011, and displays that the award expires on Sunday, August 5, 2012....

NOTE: I don't have enough points for the suggested A+ switch back & forth scheme.

If you have a full Award, i.e., two One Way Awards (and you haven't indicated otherwise), you don't need any points at all to use the free extension via A+ laundering "scheme."