Prospect of point devaluation vs. RR again?
 

I'm sitting on a lot of points, courtesy of the recent promo, in order to delay the expiration date of the Southwest Rapid Reward that they will become. (No trips to Norway pending. ;)) To the sages, was the devaluation a year ago a rare occurrence, and likely just triggered by the CO => AGR => CP => RR hemorrhage? If it was, I'll continue to let them ride. If not, I'll shift them before 12/31/08. Thank you.

I claim no sagacity and have many fewer CP points than you but the RR 2.0 speculation thread in the Southwest forum suggests to me that there will be another significant devaluation of the CP->RR transfer coincident with the rollout of RR 2.0. I'm guessing one may have a bit more time than the end of the year - say, maybe until March 2009 or so - but I too plan to make my move before 2008 ends as I will need the Award(s) in October 2009.

The change actually happened July 26 rather than a year ago; there's no particular significance to the end of the year, but it's an indication that a change can happen at any time with no notice.

It's official, new RR redemption will be 1.5 RR per 6,000 points instead of the current 2.0RR per 6,000 points.

Effective July 9 2009

Is there a way to transfer any of my points to Mr. honu's account?

I don't think so. Last time I tried to redeem into my wife's WN account, the credits showed up in MY account.

Mrs. Honu, my email alert to your first post, before your edit, had you saying that you were getting an error message when you tried to get through. Did that resolve?

I want to wait until after this weekend to make the transfer so that my Rapid Rewards don't expire until after the Fourth, next year. But I'll call them soon if the problem you first described persists. If it does, I'll anticipate a real kluge by the 9th.

Thank you. :)

RR awards expire one year from date of issuance, not one year from date of triggering activity. (RR credits are good for two years from date of activity.)

If CP—»RR transfers are still done in a weekly batch that posts on Mondays, the earliest possible expiration for an award triggered by CP transfers initiated now is one year from Monday, IOW, Tuesday July 6, 2010.

You can buy a one week deferral of issuance/expiry by waiting for the current batch cutoff deadline to pass. Has anyone determined the batch cutoff deadline? I can't recall.

Waiting beyond Monday will have no effect on the date of issuance for awards triggered by transfers made to beat the devaluation deadline.

Where is it made official?

The official Choice Privileges News & Updates page makes no mention of the change: http://www.choicehotels.com/ires/en-US/html/GPNews

I found it, the change is noted at: http://www.choicehotels.com/ires/en-...AirlineRewards

Look before you leap (CP»»»RR transfers)
 

If you have a relatively small number of CP points to transfer to RR, be careful not to leap before you look! If a devaluation-induced transfer causes issuance of an award that you are not certain you will use within one year, you might be better off accepting the points devaluation instead of paying an award extension fee. Example: you transfer 30,000 CP points to acquire 10 RR credits, trigger an award, pay $50 (or more?) one year hence to reinstate the award. If you leave those 30K points with CP they will be worth 7.5 RR credits after devaluation. If you are able to transfer them at a time that avoids the future $50 RR extension fee you will come out ahead unless you value the RR award at more than $320. I rarely realize more than $250 benefit per RR, so it probably doesn't make sense for me to make a hasty CP»»»RR transfer to trigger an award I cannot use within one year.

Yes, it was just a matter of remembering how many 0's I had before the beginning of the actual RR # (it was 00000 and I was typing 0000). :o

You are assuming that CP won't devalue again.

This is a bad assumption.

I have to take the risk. I'm not as interested in Reward flights as I am continuing to earn a yearly companion pass. Any points I earn now between now and 9/2 are essentially wasted since I met the 100 points required a couple of months ago.

You could always use the Choice points for stays or something (though I am in the same boat as you, grabbing at RR credits whenever I can).

Huge devaluation in less than a year (relative to RR credits) makes the people running CP quite suspect. I posted on 7/26/08 that they had just gone from 5000 points per 2 WN credits to 6000 per. Now it's going to be 6000 per 1.5. So that's 37.5% devaluation in less than a year, if my math is right.

I don't trust them not to hammer us in other ways.

I learned a long time ago in business that when someone takes advantage of you, he doesn't stop doing so in the future.

And WN is supposedly going to change the RR program. We have no way of knowing what's going to happen with the Companion Pass or anything else. Supposedly they will give us 6 months notice, and they probably will.

But I know some GM/Chrysler bondholders who thought they knew the rules of the game, too.

That said, you are probably relatively safe for 2 months.