Originally Posted by
starflyer
I nearly abondoned Southwest because of this. How long is it going to take for them to bring this back? I thought Southwest kept touting how they wanted more partners - where are they?
More partners is not the same which partners or
how they partner.
SPG is still a Southwest partner for stays, just not for transfers!
Southwest seems to be leaning toward all the budget hotels programs (Choice, Best Western, WyndhamRewards, La Quinta, etc) but only a subset of the mid-scale to full-service hotel programs (Marriot yes, IHG no, Hyatt yes, Hilton no, SPG yes on stays but no on transfers).
Btw, note that while you don't earn CPQP on hotel stay bonuses, you do earn CPQP on hotel point transfers. So perhaps the key to Southwest reinstating SPG transfers would be once they stop giving CPQP for hotel point transfers! How many people would view that as good tradeoff?
(My theory: It was probably because too many people were earning CPQP with SPG transfers, rather the just getting Southwest redeemable points with SPG transfers, that the transfer optoin was eliminated while hotel stay earning option was kept at SPG.)