American Express Membership Rewards - SW Flights Unavailable on Amex Travel?

Just curious, but has anyone ever booked a flight on Southwest through Amex Travel? I fly OAK-RNO several times a year on SW and have always purchased my ticket on southwest.com. I'm still in my first Gold Rewards Plus year, so am earning double points (I believe) because SW is a partner airline. I'm going again next week and thought I would use Amex travel to pay with points; however, no SW flights come up in the search. All the other airlines that fly there either from OAK or SFO appear to be there, so I'm wondering what the deal is. I tried several times over a 3 day period just in case something was off when I first checked, but so far nothing.

you want to pay with points? (25,000 points = $250)

or you want to convert 25,000 membership rewards points into a Rapid Reward?

I was considering paying with points, because I did this with two inter-island flights in Hawaii recently for tickets that were less than $50. I've also booked an occasional cheap room in Vegas with points (or partial points, since you are allowed a mix of points/cash. I would NOT transfer points to SW, because I fly them enough to earn rewards without wasting 25,000 points - especially since they don't go anywhere worth that amount of points. :) I was just interested in booking the flights and perhaps use points if I snagged a cheap flight, or perhaps use some points, or pay cash if the transfer was ridiculous. I just wanted to SEE what my options were, but unfortunately no SW flights were offered. I just found it strange with SW being an Amex partner, while United is not - but Amex travel showed me at least six of their flights.

ETA: No, I wasn't interested in a Rapdi Reward, but I can see how what I wrote was confusing. Thanks

gotcha.

you can pay any travel expense with points, if its not showing up in amex's online engine, id give them a call.

To use Pay with Points to book with Southwest Airlines, please call Membership Rewards® Land & Sea at 1-800-268-3205 and select option #2. If you are looking for any other airline and it is not shown in your search results on the website, please call American Express Travel at 1-800-297-2977.

http://www134.americanexpress.com/travel/CTNWTServlet?request_type=travelhome

Also, on this page...

http://go.americanexpress-travel.com/flights/GoToNewSearch.do

...scroll down to item [5] and look at the Airline pick list to see all the carriers. Noteworthy omissions: British Airways, JetBlue, Southwest. I don't understand BA or B6 because this site is operated by Travelocity and those carriers are available on their main site :confused: .

Excellent! It was such a puzzle, but I will definitely give them a call. Thank you so much.

WN is very restrictive with their inventory. They allow some corporate TAs to see it and sell it or you have to book it direct. The reps can do it because they have access via their systems, but WN won't let AmEx put that on the web site.

And 25K points for a $250 ticket isn't great value unless you really have so many that you've got nothing else to use them for.

S.