Howdy. If you use, or are planning to use, your DC points to generate WN credits, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the WN RR changes that are coming 3/1/11, if you haven't already.

Big thread in the WN forum.:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/south...-1-2011-a.html

Thanks. What is the new exchange rate when converting Club Rewards points to Rapid Rewards points?

They have not said a word about exchange rates to the new currency.

According to newrapidrewards.com, the website Southwest set up to explain the new program, the exchange rate in RR2.0 will be 1,500 DC points -> 1,200 RR2.0 points, which have $20 in cash value on Wanna Get Away fares in the new program.

Yikes! $20 seems lousy, given that you can get $15 in gift cards for the same number of DC points.

I value my legacy airline miles at at least 2 cents per mile (because I only use awards when the fare is not low), and thus with a legacy airline 1500 DC points would be valued at $30 at least.

(Not that this is much different on average from RR 1.5. It's just more obvious with no way around it by looking for the best values in award redemption.)

The only thing that made DC->RR transfers make sense (other than for topping, of course) in the past was period bonuses where you'd earn a 50% bonus (which was often phrased as needing way fewer DC points for a limited time to get 16 credits). Who knows if they'll offer such periodic bonus again under the RR 2.0?

For some people there is an additional value in the RR2.0 points in that they count towards Companion Pass qualification, they are in effect a form of EQM, not just RDM. For example, come October and I'm short 10 RR1.0/12,000 RR2.0 credits towards my CP renewal, those points will be much more valuable than $200 to me when I transfter them to WN.

With RR 2.0, though, you can't combine points and segments for CP qualification any more. So for those who are close to a CP on segments but nowhere close on points, transferring from DC will no longer do any good. Only those who are close to a CP on points will benefit (beyond the value of the points themselves) by transferring from DC.

This is true, but what percentage of folks do you think will qualify for CP under the 100 segment rule in RR2.0? I think it will be pretty small.

Also note in the example I used was for later this year, while I'll be getting RR2.0 points for the transfer, I still get to qualify under the old rules this year.

Indeed, it will tend to be mostly weekly fliers like our friend nsx.

But what I really meant (but I guess didn't say clearly) is that those who used to qualify for the CP with somewhere around an even mix of flights and partner activity now will have to have way more partner activity just to get there, because they won't be able to take the flight segment count up with partner activity. And thus, for htem, it may be harder.

It's only "just as easy" for those who got almost all their CP credits before from partner activity. Which implies they don't fly paid on WN super often.

It seems to me this either-or arrangment for CP earning discourages non-super-frequent WN flyers from paying for WN flights, especially on trips booked well in advance (and thus at WGA fares), where they're not traveling with tcompanion, because the points they'll earn won't help much toward the CP. They might as well fly someone else (if that's convenient and price compettive, of course) for those flights, and only use WN for the flights where they can make use of the CP they earned through partner activity.

How that helps WN's bottom line I'm not sure.

This RR 2.0 was created to discourage one "unwanted behaviior" -- flying paid on short hops to earn awards on longhauls -- but seems to encourage new "unwanted behavior" because of too many different currencies -- points, tier points, segments -- in an oddly jumbled mix. I know this isn't what most FTers would want, but I don't understand why RR 2.0 didn't make CP a "true" elite benefit by making it be only segments or tier points.