nsx

Hmmm. Southwest's FAQ says: "If you companion pass has an expiration date in 2012 at that time of launch, you will retain your Companion Pass until 12/31/2012."

The only question is whether "launch" is March 1, 2011, as I believe it is. SWABrian, what do you say?

fireworksboy

I'm not saying there won't be those promos but anytime there are such large shifts in a program, I get nervous. I know this, for the last ten years or so, I knew what to expect out of SW. Today things changed and the changes are fairly dramatic.

As I stated earlier, if they continue to offer dbl or triple promos, I'll be back. Until I know what the deal is, I'll just credit my car rentals to Marriott.

tusphotog

I think Brian clarified this. I'm in the same situation as you, except my CP expires in October.

From his PM to me, and post here, it seems that if you hit 100 credits prior to 3/1/11, you're CP is good until 12/31/2012. Get those next 30 points before 3/1/11. (I'd actually say 2/20/11 to give them enough time to post).

jrpaguia

Definitely US.

Flying every weekend, you can easily earn Gold elite status which is actually quite a bit better than A-List Preferred. Check here:

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...rred/gold.html

And US does match WN fares (as long as you book within, say, a 2-3 week window, you'll get good fares). Regardless of how much you paid for your ticket, you'll always get the same amount of miles for a specific route. Now with WN, if you're booked on a bunch of $64 fares and it goes down to $49...there will no longer be an unadulterated "Woohoo!" --- instead, one would start thinking, "Oh crap, I can save $$$, but how will this affect my year end point totals towards CP?"

Since US is part of Star Alliance, you can also earn miles on other Star Alliance partners, i.e., UA, CO, LH, OZ.

toomanybooks

But doesn't a new Companion Pass actually start to exist officially, and get its expiration date assigned, the day the old one expires? So then in my case, the launch will have happened 3 months previously and my old one will still be the one in effect.

Sorry to harp on this, but ambiguity in the way WN announces and writes things drives me completely around the bend.

I have a feeling WN will make good on this, but would love to see it in writing before I transfer a load of Starpoints that I have been accumulating for months for this exact purpose.

leeinct

Here is a simple question I hope...

I am an A list member. Would my TQP be calculated when I buy a WGA fare at the Base 6 points per $ or at the 7.5 Alist rate? Just was curious as I am trying to get my math straight.

Lee

toomanybooks

I sure hope you are right, but the way this is worded leads me to think that you have to have already, as of today, Jan. 6, accumulated the 100.:

"A lot of you have asked what happens because you have a CP expiring after March 1, but you have already earned enough credits for a second CP. If you are in this group, your CP will be extended to 12/31/2012. "

I won't post on this again until we hear something more. Sorry to be monomaniacal.

jetsetter

The WN materials refer to no blackout dates, no seat restrictions, and every seat is an award seat. Those aren't really complaints I had. I had a tiny problem once with a blackout date for a friend but she flew the day before/after & it was fine. I've used the Freedom awards to get "every seat" as an award seat.

I agree with iahphx as well.

I mostly fly BOS to BWI. Lets say on average for about 40 flights I pay about $60 per oneway flight?

I know in RR 1.0 I mostly earned my credits through promotions. It was always a let down to get just the 1 credit. On longer flights like BOS to SAN I didn't like getting 1 credit eg my experience with legacy programs.

Sure free WiFi is cool but thats $5.

I am surprised there is no free same day changes for A List Preferred.

Still trying to do the math here.

Other data points:
*I never flew WN except once before they got to BOS;
*I'm about 2 credits away from 2nd companion pass;
*My favorite thing about WN is no change fees;
*I really enjoy the mileage game eg iahphx post really hit home with me.

sbm12

JetBlue did the same thing. You can convert new to old but not old to new. It is a bit annoying and I certainly do not like that they did it, though I understand why they do.
Indeed, it will be much harder (if not impossible) to game it now. For folks here searching for that little nugget of knowledge that helps beat the system that is a frustrating development.

At the same time, however, even the "regular" folks might end up losing on this, not necessarily those out to game the system. If you're not on a lot of BS fares your RoI is going to drop almost guaranteed. Even if you're not playing every trick out there with partners and segment runs and $19 fares or whatever, you're still probably going to lose a bit if you typically are a sub-$99 ticket customer. That stings.

The WN claim will be that lack of blackout dates justifies this. But when you charge so much for those last minute seats that they may as well be blacked out because earning that many points is so hard then having access to that last seat really doesn't help. If you earn on WGA fares only and have a need to redeem a $500 BS fare you're looking at $10,000 in spend to have that many (60K) points. It simply isn't a good rate of return, even compared to the double rate awards today.

cooger72

I tried to figure that out with the simulator. It look slike all TQPs are processed at the base rate for the fare, and any bonus points are not TQPs.

pinniped

I was a bit surprised at that too. That was one thing I enjoyed in my period as legacy top-tier (UA 1K mainly).

Even if it was free standby only, that would have been a nice A-List Preferred benefit.

nsx

TMB, you are making it more complex than it is. After March 1, there will be no expiration dates other than December 31 for any elite or CP benefits. Start from that premise and you'll see that the December 2012 date follows logically.

bon95

SHOCKED!


















wait, no, not at all.

nsx

That answer was technically correct but incomplete. On March 1, the original Feb 2012 expiration date will be extended to December 31, 2012.

skedastik

I just spent over an hour on the phone with a very helpful WN representative that brought in a high level supervisor to clarify a few questions that I think we all share:

Q: Can anybody qualify for A-list Preferred on 3/1/11 based on prior flying activity or will everybody start at zero? If everybody starts at zero, and we are already grandfathered A-list members, will we only have to earn the incremental amount of credits/points (e.g. 25 one-way qualifying flights or 35,000 points) to then qualify for A-List Preferred or will we have to qualify entirely (e.g. 50 one-way qualifying flights or 70,000 points)?

A: "Anybody who has 50 or more qualifying flights between 3/1/10 and 3/1/11 will earn the A-List Preferred membership, which will be good through 12/31/12. The confusion here is that no 'points' will start accruing until 3/1/11, but you can still qualify for A-List Preferred status through one-way qualifying flights."

He also referenced the FAQ located at http://www.southwest.com/newRR/faq.do:

I'm an A-List Member, what does this change mean for me?

If you have A-List status at the time of the conversion to the new program, you will retain your A-List status in the new program, and you may qualify for A-List Preferred status.

He reiterated that qualification is strictly based on qualifying one-way flight segments flown in the prior 12 months.


Q: Is the companion status qualification the same way? Or do people lose their previous credits?

A: "The Companion Pass qualification rules are exactly the same as I previously mentioned. It will be a credit-based qualification only until 3/1/11. The only difference is that credits earned through anything other than qualified one-way flight segments will be lost on 3/1/11, since this is the day the new points system begins. The trade-off however is that if someone has a lot of non-flight credits and is close, they have extra incentive to qualify before 3/1/11, because this will give them almost 2 years of qualification status (since it wouldn't expire until 12/31/12).


Q: Once someone qualifies for A-List, A-List Preferred, or Companion Pass status in 2011, will any future activity in 2011 count toward the requalification in 2013 since the expiration date is pushed out until 12/31/12?

A: "People can continue to use points or qualified one-way flight segments in 2011 to qualify upward (e.g. from A-List to A-List Preferred or from A-List Preferred to Companion Pass), but they will not be able to count these toward requalification, as requalification is based on the previous 12 months' worth of activity."

Update (1/7/11 @ 12:45pm MST): WN called me back and clarified that any bonus points earned (either through the A-List/A-List Preferred multipliers or through future promotions) will NOT count toward requalification of A-List or A-List Preferred but WILL count toward the companion pass requalification. He apologized for the mis-information given to me at the time of this posting. I have deleted the original question/answer stating that bonus points will qualify for A-List/A-List Preferred requalification. He confirmed that all of the other questions above are true based on his conversations with the director of marketing.

Hopefully WN clarifies all of these nuances for everybody in the near future.

I hope this helps! Thank you NSX for this awesome thread and your relentless pursuit of the truth!