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.

Thank you, honu. starflyer, they've sure tucked it away, haven't they? So even stronger thanks to tulsan for picking it up.

ftnoob, I know of the Monday/Tuesday CP sweep, but if I'm catching your meaning, in my experience, the RR Credits have posted with the date that I requested the transfer. And the RR reward has been issued as of the date that I hit the 16 credits. What was harrowing was waiting to see whether stays would post by the next stay sweep, while sitting on the cusp of a Southwest Companion Pass that depended on this. Fortunately, all conflated in my favor. This year, to delay it as far as possible, I'll do the transfer on on the 8th, and see what happens.

Now to calculate how much closer the devaluation brings the decision to take CP points or .5 RR Credit to about even. It's a no-brainer when there's no 14,000 or 16,000 point CP promotion.

More broadly, CP has about no value as an incentive program to me anymore, as Norway still isn't in the cards ;). In the last year: Redemption for RRs is down nearly 1/2. The 10% bonus points don't move me. The point requirements for free night redemption have increased 25% and more (except EL and RW, which stretch the saying that "a free night's a free night"). And the rooms I get depend on the discounted rates I pay, rather than status. But on the other hand, those below-advertised $33-$45 rates at Quality, Comfort and Clarion in the Monterey area last winter were quite nice.

Net: I think I'll keep using them as my alternate if their rates are low and they keep giving the .5 RR Credit -- and there's no other choice.

Hmmmmm.

In actuality I did not assume "that CP won't devalue again." Yes I did make an implicit assumption that there will be no future zero-notice devaluation. (It is not unreasonable to believe the one last summer was due to extraordinary circumstances.) As long as there is notice of a future devaluation the redemption can be made at the recently announced exchange rate. It is important to note that, on the flip side, I also considered but did not mention that SWA could very easily increase award extension fees. They recently doubled their baggage fees with minimal advance notice. When they increase the award extension fee can we be sure we'll be able to extend at the old rate? IIRC, we have to wait for an award to expire before we can extend, so even, say, six months notice of a fee increase may not save us.

I haven't read anything about why the current change was made. Two possibilities come to mind. One is that SWA increased the amount they charge partners for RR credits. Another is that after the Amtrak-related fiasco last year, CP suddenly took note of how many of their points are redeemed for RR credits. They did the 20% devaluation to immediately stem the tide, then continued to monitor the situation. Eventually they realized that even at 3000 points per RR credit the exchange program was costing them too much. There could be another devaluation in the future, but if so there will in all probability be a "watch and wait" period similar to the one recently completed.

Unfortunately for them they will probably see a business drop off and an other income drop off...both of which they will likely blame on the economy instead of associating it with their business policy changes. :rolleyes:

If you will allow me to fix your statement for you...Now we are in perfect agreement. :)

If you are looking at your RR credit activity at southwest.com, there is not always a sure way to retroactively discern the posting date. The data that is displayed includes only the activity date.

Perhaps an example will better illustrate my point. Suppose you initiate a transfer from CP to RR on Tue 07-July, and the credits transferred will trigger issuance of an an award. On what date will the award be issued? 07-July? 08-July? No, if the weekly batching still applies it cannot be issued before 13-July, the first date on which SWA will know that you initiated the transfer. 13-July will be the posting date of the credits, and depending how quickly the SWA system issues the award, it will be dated either 13-July or 14-July.

When you look at your RR "statement" on, say, 15-July, you'll see a CP transfer dated 07-July. That date is important for a couple reasons. One reason is that it means the award issuance can pick up credits back to 07-July two years ago, rather that just back to 13-July two years ago.

To you @17, I agree. And I think @13 was toomanybooks's sardonic wit.

To you @18, I agree to your edit and that one can't get to the RR before the (latter) post date, so in practice it's the one that matters. But - and I realize we're off into Southwest arcana here - otherwise, I tentatively yield because I respect how much more thoroughly you know Southwest. (And I'll bet it's in the FAQ.) I believe we'll have to see what actually happens.

Maybe I'm distracted by (what I consider to be) the big Southwest glitch: That if the stray .5 credit shows up after a RR is issued, it resets the clock to the activity date that it was earned :mad: (e.g., a car rental) ...so I thought Southwest was always biased toward the earliest date that it could grab for all purposes. And like I said, last year, I'm pretty sure this worked to my benefit, as I got in just under the wire for the Companion Pass when my last Choice stay date became the activity date, the date Southwest recorded.

This year, I want you to be right.

Apologies to watchers... Hopefully there are more out there, who have been keeping their Choiceprivileges points in the cellar, to whom some of this has value. :)

Rapid Rewards 2.0 is likely to arrive around the end of 2009. When that happens, the exchange rate will necessarily change. That change would provide excellent cover for a devaluation.

The devaluation 6 months ahead of RR 2.0 might have been prompted by a contract expiration. Or the Choice Privileges people might not know the RR 2.0 rollout schedule. Or they just might not give a d*mn.

If I am understanding you, I don't think that's right.

I have .5 of a WN RR award expiring 10/4/09 and another .5 expiring 12/29/09. In "My Southwest," when I click on "awards" at left, then on "reissue rewards," I can extend either or both of them today for $50 apiece (same for .5 and whole awards, IIRC).

Here are the terms:

* A one-way or roundtrip Award may be reissued for a $50 fee per Award.
* Simply select the Award(s) you would like to reissue from the list of available Awards below, and click on the "Reissue Selected Award(s)" button.
* New Award(s) to be deposited into your account immediately.
* Awards are reissued with a new, 12-month validity period that begins on the date that the request is processed.
* Reissued Standard Awards will be subject to capacity controls, meaning seats for travel on reissued Awards will be limited and not available on all flights.

Yes, thanks for the correction, you can extend some awards before expiration. It would be a bit cruel of SWA to make you wait for an award to expire if you want to use it shortly after its expiration date. (I've read that they do make you wait to extend TTF).

I have two available awards, one of which is eligible to be extended and one which is not. I don't know what the governing rule is; one has an expiration date that is beyond the current booking window, so that is one possible explanation.

Apologies for relying on an IIRC instead of researching it first. The point remains it may cost more than $50 to extend an award, while even the $50 could be a bigger hit than the change in the points exchange rate, depending on how many CP points, and RR credits and awards you have and are able to use. Mrs. ftnoob has ~30K points and with our current surplus RR award situation I cannot justify a transfer which will trigger another RR award which will likely expire before it is used. At 48K CP points (enough for an entire award) my conclusion might be different.

Bra-vo, Southwest, and spot-on, ftnoob
 

Overnight, all ChoicePrivileges transfers showed up in My Rapid Rewards Credit Summary: "Choice Privileges Credit ... 7/8/09", and two "Standard RT Award ... 7/13/09". Just how I hoped it would go down, and...

^

Someday, I think I'll stay at Choice one more time - OK, twice - once to pick up the remaining deficit points toward a free night, once to use the free night - OK, likely at an EL or RW - and that will be that.

...AFTER I do the four stays at Best Westerns to pick up the two free nights.