Southwest Rapid Rewards - Capacity controls and sold-out holiday flights

I was trying to book award travel for early January and I noticed a singular lack of seats. I ended up moving the entire trip a week later, which was no particular problem for me. But it got me thinking (always a dangerous thing, I know).

Some people decide to travel at the last minute during the holidays. On non-blackout dates, Southwest does not have seats to sell these people, and all that revenue is lost unless the customers are willing to go standby. Not very likely unless Southwest has 80%+ of the market in question. I wonder just how much revenue we are talking about. I'll bet Southwest has some pretty accurate estimates, and that's why the capacity controls warning continues to be included in the Rapid Rewards terms, even though it has been deferred every year.

What's the likely result? More blackout dates, I think. Personally, I'd welcome a compromise with no blackout dates but all flights capacity controlled. Capacity caps would start at 20% for RR awards up to 14 days ahead, and increase to 80% after that. Since we FTers tend to know exactly when the schedule will open for booking, it would be almost like having no blackout dates at all.

I had one other idea which seems bizarre at first. Southwest could offer absurdly low fares for exactly those flights which are likely to attract heavy RR award usage. Then we'd all buy our tickets for those flights and use the RR tickets somewhere else. But this idea fails when carried to its logical conclusion, because Southwest would then have to cut fares on those other flights and pretty soon every flight would be priced below cost.

Does anyone here see a solution other than a version of capacity controls? A strategy that leaves Southwest with enough full-fare seats to sell to last-minute travelers?

Actually, I don't agree that these are award seats filling up the planes.

I attempted to book my holiday travel with $, not awards, since my preferred dates fell on some blackout dates. Within several hours of these seats being opened for sale, a number of flights already had a number of "dots" filled in the matrix, forcing me into much higher prices than I would ever pay for these routes. (In the end, I changed my schedule completely to book a combination of cheap fares and awards).

What I believe you are seeing is a huge amount of holiday travel across the board. Other airlines continue to pull back capacity, and with an increase in demand this year, there just aren't enough seats to go around.

With the percentage of RR tickets still only in the mid-single digits, I can't see an argument for more blackout dates or capacity controls. It's just not an issue.

Capacity caps would start at 20% for RR awards up to 14 days ahead, and increase to 80% after that.

Then Southwest becomes like everyone else - I can show you examples when not a single seat on a United flight has been sold, but no award seats are available due to being "held back" for potential sale. What's the award capacity on that flight? Zero. If they are going to play these games they are no better than the competition.

There shouldn't be any blackout awards. Instead charge 12 points for a 1-way award on the dates currently marked as "blackout"

WN's system is great in that there aren't capacity controls. But many other airlines have zero blackout days, and a customer can get a seat on any flight anyday if willing to "spend" more miles. It would be great for WN to add this component (zero blackout days) to their program.

Then Southwest becomes like everyone else - I can show you examples when not a single seat on a United flight has been sold, but no award seats are available due to being "held back" for potential sale. What's the award capacity on that flight? Zero. If they are going to play these games they are no better than the competition.

You're mistaken on this. You can open a seat on any United flight on any day of the year (assuming it's not fully sold out). A 40k award will open the entire inventory possibilities. The award capacity on an empty plane is the entire plane!

You are correct. If you ordinarily fly Chicago-St. Louis, you only have to complete 80 segments for a free domestic ticket! Yippee!

Why would Southwest want to replicate such an unnecessarily complex and screwed-up system? It flies in the face of every Rapid Reward piece of marketing since its inception.

ObSWTrivia: You can fly on an award on a blackout day if you track down a Green Pass.

WN's system is great in that there aren't capacity controls. But many other airlines have zero blackout days, and a customer can get a seat on any flight anyday if willing to "spend" more miles. It would be great for WN to add this component (zero blackout days) to their program.

"No blackout dates" is a potential win for both the customer and the airline. If an airline misgauges a holiday's demand, or finds demand lower than expected in a specific local area, or on an off-peak flight, they can release award seats on just those cities/flights. That will allow members to get miles/points off their books, and fill up empty planes.

Having an inflexible rule like blacking out the day before Thanksgiving with no exceptions does nobody any good if a few odd 6:00 a.m. flights are only half full that day, and someone wants to redeem their credits.

I'm speaking as the customer. I don't refute the fact that there are many good elements of the RR free ticket program. The fact there are 10-12 blackout days/year is an aspect that is now uncompetitive.

If I have a family emergency on 12/24 or the Wed before Thanksgiving, I can get on a flight on UA for free within hours, a worthy use of 40k miles. On WN I'm buying a full-fare ticket. As a customer, which has more value?

I can handle a little bit of complexity. ;)

You are correct. If you ordinarily fly Chicago-St. Louis, you only have to complete 80 segments for a free domestic ticket! Yippee!

:confused:

If you fly enough you have status, and the equation gets much better:

ORD-STL 500
STATUS BONUS 500
STL-ORD 500
STATUS BONUS 500
ONLINE BOOKING BONUS 1,000
TOTAL: 3,000

Provided there are no other bonuses, that makes 8.3 RTs for a free capacity-controlled ticket, or about 13.3 RTs for an unrestricted one.

You are correct. If you ordinarily fly Chicago-St. Louis, you only have to complete 80 segments for a free domestic ticket! Yippee!
That's a strawman using an extreme example. After all, I could have gotten the miles by selling and financing a home through a Mileage Plus partner.

How about using a ticket on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, regardless of how I earned the miles. That's in line with the topic of this thread. The "which program makes sense to me based on where I fly" is a good subject, for a different thread. ;)

There's one easy fix that I think might work. Southwest could allow Rapid Rewards booking on the "least popular" single flight on any blackout date. So if you wanted to fly on 12/24, you could do it, but you'd have to take the last flight. (I'm assuming that'd be the least popular.)

The idea of eliminating blackout dates and adding capacity controls is certainly a logical one from many points of view. However, from one other perspective, it goes against the basic WN strategy of simplicity and cost control.

Adding capacity controls significantly increases the workload and job complexity of the people in inventory management. This is one of the most complex and time-consuming aspects of the airline industry, and I suspect WN feels it is not worth the time and effort.

This holiday I had intended to take a vacation from Dec 26-29. When I realized Dec 26 was a blackout date, I just switched to Dec 27-30. No problem, as seats were available on all flights.

My favorite hotel program is Starwood, primarily because they do not have capacity controls on their hotel rooms. I do not plan trips months in advance. Having had frustrating times finding airline seats on UA, DL, NW etc because of capacity controls and hotel rooms with Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott, my personal preference is to endure a few blackout dates and have no capacity controls.