Southwest companion pass rule change? Today: *Companion Pass Qualifying Points are earned from your revenue flights booked through Southwest Airlines, your points earned by making purchases with a Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Card, and your base points earned from Rapid Rewards partners. Purchased points, points converted from hotel and car loyalty programs, and e-Rewards, e-Miles, Valued Opinions and Diners Club, points earned from Rapid Rewards program enrollment, tier bonuses, flight bonuses, and partner bonuses (excluding points bonuses earned on the Rapid Rewards Credit Cards from Chase) do not count toward Companion Pass

Oh No!!! Glad I saw this now and will look into it. I was just about to submit for a travel package for this...bummer maybe. Thank you for the heads up.

Yeah I'm gonna call on this on Tuesday to see if this is correct.

Southwest has pulled the eligibility for the CP with a Travel Package. Points obtained from transferring hotel points do not count any more toward CP. They have updated language on their website in the T&Cs.

Hope nobody got burned too badly.

eee! i've been trying to redeem online since last night (after midnight) but i keep getting an error.

i guess i shouldn't do this anymore if this isn't going to count towards a CP on southwest.

my existing CP just expired on 12/31 so i was hoping to renew again for 2 years but i guess no go?

Stupid [profanity] bloggers continue to steal ideas from here and other online communities and exploit them to get more clicks on their sites and credit card referrals. After the spg merger and there was 1:3 to marriott every [profanity] blogger was touting 90k spg points for a free week and 120k sw points and CP to a vast majority of people who had never heard of Marriott travel packages. [Large deletion.]

Wow! So disappointed about the companion pass. Thanks so much for the heads up on the change!

Well...I wouldn't have used that exact language. :eek: But if you're going to, save some of it for Southwest! Pretty low of them not to give a second's notice. I hope nobody gets stuck doing a transfer in the next few days that doesn't give them what they want.

i agree. Southwest knew this was going on. They had every opportunity to announce this change in advance. I am guessing that they were concerned that people would get the CP right away if they did, even if it was only good for 13 months instead of 24. So they went with the no notice change.

They knew that most people were probably waiting till January to take advantage of it. So they opted to make sure they couldn't.

I was ready to jump on the package with Southwest points today with the objective of getting the Companion Pass. Disappointed that they did this and more disappointed that there wasn't advance notice that this was coming - I thought it was possible that there would be a change in policy for 2017, but waiting until the stroke of midnight leaves a bad taste...

I'm sure that Southwest had its reasons for not wanting to give away flights on a 2-for-1 basis to the travel hacking crowd any longer and reserve the passes for high-revenue business travelers who use the companion benefit less frequently. Disappointed nonetheless, but at least I'm not stuck with a boatload of points in Rapid Rewards and no CP.

Always interesting that I rarely see where many of these bloggers give credit where credit is due. Do they really come up with all these hacks themselves? Not likely, though if they did give proper credit, they would quickly lose clicks to the places where many of these ideas are conceived.

This is so ridiculous. So you think it's bloggers and not sites like this that cause people to exploit what YOU know? You know it because it's out there, and that is how I know it too. Southwest just stopped it because they realized it was hurting their bottomline. I am disappointed because I have 270K points ready to go, but now I just have to figure out how to spend those Marriott points.

I called WN today to learn about CP. Asked some questions and confirmed that my MR points would work. The rep said they would and now this. Thank God MR was closed. I tried to do the TP. So glad I couldn't. Otherwise, I would be outta luck. I am so irritated right now.

See SWA Forum
 

For those unhappy about the changes announced by SWA to the CP program there is an existing thread here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/south...ualifying.html

Added the information re: the change to SW & companion pass to the wiki.

Cheers.

FWIW (and its not worth much), I just called WN about this. One rep told me they DO count. I called back. Another said they didn't. AND that the language was always there, but now they are enforcing it.....kinda like MR points expiration.

No doubt when MR opens for business on Tuesday, someone who hasn't heard the news will call and transfer 270k MR points to WN. We will then find out for sure if their new T&C are being enforced (and if their IT is capable of doing so) :rolleyes:

I did the transfer today. I still want the RR points for a big family trip to Aruba. Will let everyone know what happens.

Looking to do a week at the Ft Lauderdale Ritz. When booking with points the hotel adds a surcharge of $50/night. Does anyone know if such a charge would also be added with a points and miles certificate?

Also- would there still be a resort fee with this booking?

Thanks

What is the $50/night fee? Is that the resort fee, or something separate like a room upgrade? Chances are you'd see whatever fees you're seeing now with the travel package cert as well.

It is just a supplemental charge, not resort or upgrade. When you go to book with points it shows up as costing x points per night plus 50 USD.

That sounds like you have a slightly upgraded room. Points/Certs are usually for a base room (i.e. garden view or similar). A lot of resorts will offer something like a $50/night as a single upgrade to maybe a "mountain view" room. And maybe a $100/night for a double upgrade to an "ocean view" room or possibly a $150/night for a triple upgrade to an "ocean front" room. And possibly even more upgrade options.

You might not have seen a room without the $50/night add-on because all the base rooms have already been reserved. Most of the time, hotels that offer these $50/night add-on fees will also offer the option to use upgrade certs instead (but only for award rooms as upgrade certs can't be used with cash reservations.) Each $50/night increase would require an extra cert/night.

yes, the ritz shows that when the base rooms are no longer available but you can pay extra for better rooms.

you will be charged that.

If the Marriott/SW companion pass deal is dead, which airline is now the best one to do a Travel Package with???

Thanks Mr. Vker -- please do let us know what happens!

Points posted today. Still shows I need 110K points for CP. :mad:

Which airline can you make the most out of the points you would receive? SW may still be your best option, but if you live somewhere in Europe and plan to only fly intra-Europe for the next year, SW probably won't be quite as good an option for you (even if they still handed you a CP.)

Given the bonus points handed out with a United transfer, that might be worth checking out, but again that depends on how you would use the points and if you already have any points/elite status with any of the other airlines. Also, Marriott seems to offer a transfer bonus for AA once a year as well. So if AA is one of your preferred airlines, that might be an option.

Personally, I'd suggest looking at your planned flights/trips this coming year and then see which one you could make the best use of the points you received. For example, if you wanted to take the family on a trip to Hawaii this year, I'd look to see which offers the best award values for you. If you prefer to get a 1st class ticket to Australia, I'd look to see which airline you might be able to get that award with.

I just ordered my first 7 night TP and I'm playing around with options and need a bit of help.

I assumed once I found a 7 night stay with MR availability in a category I wanted as I proceeded with selecting it the "cert" would pop up and ask if I wanted to use it (just like an e-cert for a one night stay).

What I am getting is you are short points.....blah, blah, blah.

Does the booking of a TP require a phone call or am I missing something?

Yes, here's the link to the appropriate Marriott page with the number to call:

http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usep...82&co=US&nt=CJ

I think mdurette has already ordered the TP and is trying to use the cert. I'm actually having the same issue...TP cert isn't showing up as an option when booking.

I had the same issue a couple of weeks ago--I had already ordered the TP and was trying to use the cert, but the website wouldn't let me. I had to call the agent applied it.

thanks for trying!

too bad though...

Correct. I called MR to see if I could book the TP online or if I had to call. He said I should be able to do it online, but he gets lots of reports from people who have issues doing it. He said when I find something to just give them a call and they will set it up.

If anyone knows the secret trick on how to book these online yourself, please let us know.

You book the reward online without the cert / point attached.

Then call Marriott to tell them you are using the TP cert for this booking. Then the rep would attach your cert to the booking from the Marriott end.

I have not seen anyone reported being able to book WITH the cert attached when booking online even though in theory it seems should work.

My guess is, the 7 night cert when actually attaches to the booking would show as 2 certs split the 7 nights. Dont think online allows such split so it has to be manually processed. Remember - booking a TP must be a very low % of the redemption versus the normal redemption - so there is no reason to invest in the IT side to make it bookable online while a rep can easily handle this. It is far more cost-effective for Marriott to make this type of redemption by calling only.

The window for earning Companion Pass via Marriott travel package is back open. Southwest has reversed and will allow CP earning from hotel transfers through March 31st.

Great news! How long will it take WN's crack IT team to undo this?

Wow southwest caved and reversed it? Amazing

That has been my thoughts as well. Since behind the curtains the 7-night TP hotel cert is really 2 certs and the online tool looks for individual certs that satisfy the reservation requirements, the online tool will not find and offer the TP certs.

This same issue occurs when you try to make a 2 night reservation with the online tool not seeing that you have two 1-night certs and offering them. You have to call MR and get them to make the award reservation using the two 1-night certs. Though in this case, since the 1-night certs aren't "packaged" together you could make two 1-night reservations online using the certs. I suspect the TP hotel certs are "packaged" together somehow such that you have to use them together. Thus you have to call MR to get them to attach the TP hotel award to the reservation.

Well it sounds like they reversed the no notice part. It's only being extended until March 31st.

Cheers.