Southwest Rapid Rewards - Friday RR tickets from West Coast to small airports/East Coast

I'm a newbie to WN, but have switched allegiance partly due to the fact that the Amtrak -> RR deal got me started on a CP which I finished off by flying.

Now, given that I never tested the RR availability I gotta say there are some really crazy patterns I'm starting to see.

I spend my summers on the West coast and noticed that it's becoming almost impossible to use RR of weekends because flights to say... omaha, boise, and pvd, isp, etc. almost all require going through LAS.

Never been to LAS before but it must be a circus on weekends. Still, it's a bit disappointing that WN doesn't create more room for award passangers to/from LAS considering this is one of their major hubs. Because when those flights get their allotment used up, you basically can't go onward even if there are plenty of seats LAS-OMA, LAS-BOI, LAS-PVD, LAS-ISP, etc.

Seems strange to me because SFO/SJC/OAK-LAS tickets cost $50 and shouldn't be worth that much to WN. Why not open up a few more of those seats for RR travelers. This will make availability look a lot better and wouldn't cost all that much.

Anyway, that's the way I see it. Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. But on the weekends I'm looking SFO/SJC/OAK-LAS is preventing me from getting out of the west coast, unless Phoenix looks good on that day.

Go to their travel tools section - interactive route map, and click on non-stop flights only, then the city you're interested in. You'll see LOTS of cities that OAK has non-stops to, many more than LAS only. All of those other cities are potential transfer places for your east coast trips.

SJC goes to Denver and Chicago for onward travel. SFO goes to LAS and Chicago.

I think you're underestimating the power of OAK.

But there are very few cities that have mutual connections among airports that are small and/or far away.

For example: ISP only has BWI, LAS, MDW
OMA only has PHX and LAS

I understand that there's hidden ways to book flights and that generally the loss of LAS isn't that big of a deal. But to certain airports... LAS is 1/3 or even 1/2 the routes available and just because Bay area - LAS has been used up by other RR holders (probably because it's hard to get east otherwise) you can't do much of anything else.