Correct, both the points and the bonus for charitable post when the cycle hits.

Can you explain this further? How does using for Southwest maximize point value?

book $399.99 refundable flight with SW. It will cost you 20k FP points. Then you refund ticket and have SW credit your account.

Step 3: remember to use your credit before it expires

I may need to cash in on my boatload of flexperks but need 6k more points to get the 3 tix I want. I've search for "buy flexperks" but can't find anything. Anyone know if I can buy those last 6k?

UPDATE: called in and found out its $.03/point to purchase. Not sure if there is an increment requirement.

That option used to exist but was temporarily put on hold at some point last year. When I select the Purchase Points tab, it says, "We apologize for the inconvenience, but the points purchase functionality is temporarily unavailable online. For assistance with purchasing points, please call Customer Service at 1-866-404-3291." My prior understanding is that points were/are fairly expensive, so much better to buy some VGCs at a grocery store (presuming you have a card which offers 2x on that category and enough time for the statement to close before using the points).

A few questions:

1. What are the logistics of cancelling the flight? I found a $399 ticket, but cannot pull the reservation up on WN using the record locator USB gave me, presumably because "Purchases made through Southwest Groups, Southwest ticket counters, or other Travel Agencies cannot be accessed on southwest.com." Do I have to call WN directly? Will they be difficult about it or do they not care?

2. Would others find value if we started a thread wiki for $199, $299, $399 etc. city pairs? In my case this was a WGA fare so had to hold while the agent contacted WN, which took a while because of heavy volumes. In retrospect maybe I should have gone with the $396 Anytime I found, $3 is worth some amount of time :o :)

(My ultimate goal is to break the RT as booked up into two one-ways and change the dates, which will require ~$20 extra, for which I have $17 in TTF I wanted to apply)

There was one weird disclosure that the agent said she was required to read, which was that Southwest reserves the right to change fares within 24 hours. But she wasn't sure how that would work e.g. if the fare went up, they can't really charge more. I wonder if this clause is intended to convey the 24-hour risk free cancellation terms but in a really poorly-worded way.

FWIW she also said I would have to call them back to make changes even though she gave me the WN locator -- I didn't say anything but did assume based on reading the thread that I could just make changes myself :-/

I just booked a Southwest ticket today through US Bank. I wasn't able to locate the reservation initially using the WN number but about 6 hours later I received the itinerary direct from Southwest. Did you give them your RR number when you booked?

No, I was about to give it and the agent said wait until I get done talking to Southwest and I'll take it down then, and then we forgot about it :( ok so I'll start by calling Southwest to add it and see where it goes from there.

EDIT: called WN and added RR#, after which I can pull it up now on the web site. Although I'm not logged in, so I wonder if it's more about the ~6 hours (some sort of sync?) than the RR#.

Thanks for the reply!

Can somebody please help me with the following questions?
1. If a book a 800$ Southwest flight using 40K flexperks how long should I wait before I cancel it to get the $ credit to my southwest account?
2. How long will that credit on SW account be valid for before it expires?
3. When I use the credit do I have to book for the same destination or can I use it for any destination?

Based on my experience above plus what I gleaned from the thread:

1. it may take between a few hours to half a day until you'll be able to see the reservation at Southwest.com, but once that happened I was able to cancel it.

At that point it becomes just like any other Ticketless Travel Funds, for which you should consult the Southwest forum for more details (especially the warning about mixing TTFs with different expiration dates) but

2. one year from (1) and only for the named traveler
3. any destination

I now have an Xfinity account for the first time in over a decade and wondered if it's possible that if paying Comcast with a FlexPerks card, it would show as a wireless phone company for the category bonus (as I believe U-verse does). May be a stretch, but you never know. I may just test it once and see as I don't have Ink or another card that offers a bonus for cable or Internet. Any experience? Thanks!

I am trying to redeem a flight to Dubai (DXB); however, the system does not recognize the airport. In fact, all other airports in UAE (AUH SHJ) could not be found either. When I search for DOH, I can see a flight via DXB and it can be booked but I just cannot search for DXB airport. Does anyone have the same problem?

Noticed the same thing with JNB. I'm assuming it's crappy programming and you can find an itinerary on a different site then call in to book it but I've never tried.

I had to call in last summer about a BA flight from NCE-LHR. It went fine. They ticketed over the phone and didn't charge me anything extra. Two years ago, I had to ticket a DL flight ATL-CDG w/ Flexperks that wasn't showing up and they DID charge me a call in fee, but I can't remember how much it was. I want to say $25.