Southwest Airlines (LUV) has quietly ended one of the industry's most generous and longest-running frequent-flier freebies — bonus credits for online bookings.

The Dallas-based discounter grants credits, not miles, for each flight. Southwest started giving bonus credits about eight years ago to introduce travelers to Internet booking at Southwest.com. Other airlines have offered online incentives, but none were as generous or long-lived.


Without the bonus credits, it will take eight round-trip flights in a 12-month period to earn a free ticket anywhere on the Southwest network.

That compares with just four round-trip flights when the airline offered double credits in the early years of the promotion, and just over five flights after Southwest cut the offer to one bonus credit per round trip.

Oh well, another one bites the dust