Originally Posted by
dorothymp
Hi,
the original credit card offer that I received in October said that if you spent $2K in 3 months, you would recieve 32 flight credits and that Air Tran would issue a roundtrip flight for ever 16 credist accumulated during any consectutive 24 month period. The 34 credits that posted to my account are only good for 12 months. I have called several times because this seems like deceptive advertising. Nor have I seen the business class upgrade.
I am thinking that this deal is not so good.
Unhappy with the response
(edited after I read the link I originally posted in detail)
I noticed that too today. And it's too bad. I really thought they'd incorporate the 2-year feature of Barclay's Airtran card.
Annoying but not that big a deal... In the link I originally
posted, the "transfer two step" section's last bullet notes:
"Just move the two half-awards, one at a time, to AirTran at 8 credits each. Then move the 16 AirTran credits back to Southwest. Logout and log back in to My Southwest. You will see two new one-way awards, each valid for a full year and non-extendible."
This doesn't directly perform what you're looking to accomplish but is the seed. Let's say that you use 16 of your 32 credits in the next 10 months. Then you're left with 16 more that are nearing expiration (e.g. in Oct 2013). The following should work (assuming technology doesn't change):
* Transfer 16 credits from Airtran to Southwest.
* Create a Southwest "standard" award. Two coupons will be issued expiring in Oct 2014. You could always just hold at this point and use them for Southwest flights.
* If you want to use them for Airtran, transfer the Southwest coupons back to Airtran and they should result in 8 credits each (16 total) with an expiration of Oct 2014.
You NEED 16 credits to accomplish this.
It can get complicated. If working Southwest and Airtran programs, it pays to know the in's and out's about credit transfers, old standard awards, Southwest companion passes, business class upgrades on Airtran, Chase Ultimate Reward transfers to Southwest, free cancellations of Southwest award tickets, Southwest points to Credits conversion, and I might add the triple Airtran Hertz credit (1.5 credits per rental).
Definitely worth some time to understand to get the most out of these two semi-related programs.
Good luck!