rsteinmetz70112

Airtran Customer Service has always been more on top of the status match that the Southwest people. Southwest Customer Service seems to view the Airtran integration as an unimportant nuisance. I would never talk to Southwest about anything having to do with Airtran.

I don't think Southwest has handled this integration well. I just think that given how they have handled other aspects of the integration, integrating the FF programs has been better communicated and more generous than I expected.

Knowing Airtran was going to cease operations by the end of the year I moved all of my booking to Southwest anticipating A+ rewards ending. I expected the program to just end and existing Credits to be moved to RR Credits with a single top off, as was done for RR1.0. I expected that my current Southwest status would simply remain and I would either re-qualify under their rules or not. I did not expect a status extension nor a conversion of Credits to Points.

It turns out from a Frequent Flyer Program point of view I would have been better off continuing to book on Airtran. I would have gotten 1200 points for each of my flights (usually less than $100) and would have re-qualified for Elite in less than half the flights required for A-List. In fact I would have already re-qualified. In that case I would have lost a couple of months of status (February 2015 vs December 2015). In any event I will qualify for A-List on Southwest this year.

In the end it didn't matter to me since my anniversary date is in February. I re-qualified last year so I should get a status match. My Elite status does not expire until February 2015, so I will have all of 2015 to qualify for A-List in 2016.

My wife who has booked a lot of flights on Airtran this year will re-qualify for Airtran Elite by the end of the month. She should get A-List Preferred when her flight totals are combined. Combining flights for determining status is also not something I expected.