benmaller

$40K CC spend will generate 40K points redeemable for $667 at WGA fares

benmaller

[QUOTE=-Rapid Rewards Points are earned and deposited into the Member’s account after action has been taken on the entire ticket (i.e., flown, used as payment toward another ticket, refunded, or a combination thereof). The actual number of points earned for each individual flight is calculated after completion of the entire ticket...

-A Member who flies only part of a ticket will not earn any points unless the Member takes action to complete the unused portion of the ticket. The Member can do so by applying the unflown portion of the ticket as payment for a new ticket or by requesting a refund for the unflown portion of the ticket (only allowable on refundable tickets). Cancellation of an entire ticket or a portion of a ticket is not considered taking action on a ticket. The Member will not accrue any points for any portion of the ticket that has been flown until the entire ticket has been completed (i.e., flown, used as payment toward another ticket, refunded, or a combination thereof). If the Member fails to take action to complete the partially flown ticket before the ticket expiration date, the Member will not accrue any points for the flown segments of the expired ticket[/QUOTE]

Any concerns here regarding hidden-city ticketing? Or does this only apply to not flying the return leg on a RT?

ftnoob

In a huge thread like this it is especially important to observe FT's "Stay on topic" rule:

I had hoped to send you a PM, but things have been way too busy with the big news. I'm only posting publicly now because what seems to be an incorrect answer (assuming Chase didn't change things in the past couple years) has been posted.

The Chase anniversary transfer has been around for ages, so it is of course explained in detail in the FAQ.

sbm12

A CC spend of 40K per year will net you 43K RR2 points (including the annual renewal bonus). Assuming you are able to book in advance on WGA fares that's $716 in travel funds you'll have to play with. If you book ~$60 one-way trips then you get nearly 12 of them. Obviously higher fares will be fewer and lower fares will be more.
Seems a VERY real concern.

starflyer

That seems like a very poor rate of return. I have to believe there are other credit cards that would provide a better value, unless there are other benefits that the OP will get from this level of spend on the WN CC.

Mr. July

I think that's a legitimate concern. Depending on how this provision is implemented, I could see some real problems.

toomanybooks

Putting $40K on the Starwood card would get:

1. 20% bonus on transfer (assuming current rates hold)
2. Starwood Gold
3. Flexibility to do something else with the points if you change your mind
4. Ability to time the dump so as to maximize the return

Seems clear-cut to do that instead.

ftnoob

I disagree. See RR 2.0 in a nutshell...

How often do you get nearly 2% benefit on credit card spending? I could get 2% cash back on SWA purchases with the Costco Amex, but then I'd have to pay cash for tickets. I don't want to pay cash for tickets because TTFs expire, and cannot be used for another passenger; points don't expire and can be used for other passengers.

How to maximize the value of RR 2.0 (if you won't have status):

nsx

The irony is that this obvious response to the new structure will be hailed by Southwest's management as dramatically reducing the displacement of non-discretionary revenue by RR redemption.

In reality this change in customer behavior won't save Southwest anything relative to capacity-controlled awards. It's the devaluation caused by tying the redemption price to dollar fare that saves Southwest money. That's the only reason.

ftnoob

They'll also use the increased percentage of full fare passengers as proof that RR 2.0 is working to do exactly what they intended.

ftnoob

Sorry, it's been so busy I'm just getting back to reviewing the OP. Below are a few more comments.

Regarding Companion Qualifying Points:
Regarding award top off:
Regarding forward conversion:

ftnoob

Nice analysis, pshuang. Early extension had been mentioned only briefly to this point.

We don't really know how much choice we'll have there. The award extension page says (emphasis added):Ordinarily, Awards that are good beyond the end of August would not be expected to be available to be extended on 28-Feb. Today, however, I noticed that the award extension page does list an Award I have that expires in the second week of September. So here in January they are already going beyond six months.

Here's another complication:
If you have an award that you might want to extend early, but it is holding a reservation for a trip that you aren't sure you are going to take, you could be in a bind.

ftnoob

nsx, I nominate your post for biggest understatement of the thread!

On first reading of RR 2.0 rules I concluded it was pretty much a lock that the hotel and rental car earnings would be dropping as soon as permissible. The question would be "what sort of contractual provisions, if any, apply?" The best case for the customer is that the partners are not allowed to change the rates until contract renewal. If that's not the case, do partners purchase blocks of credits that they inventory, or is there periodic (e.g., weekly or monthly) invoicing of charges for RR credits? If partners can change earning rates whenever they please, then it is just a matter of when they get around to doing so. Presumably the data dump from the partners will continue to be expressed in old system credits (meaning the conversion to new system points is being done by SWA) until each partner has the chance to update their own systems. Once the systems are updated, it is open season on devaluations.

sdsearch

It's ironic that the one hotel family that has a precedent for at least sometimes giving a nice amount of flat miles per stay to one or two miles-based airlines (even as it's giving low miles/dollar spent to most other airlines) is the hotel family that's severing ties with Southwest a week before this change: IHG (Priority Club).

(Priority Club gives 1 mile per dollar spent at extended-stay brand Candlewood Suites for most airlines, but for BA it gives a flat 500 miles.)

Based on this, had Priority Club stayed with Southwest, it'd have been the one hotel family I held out a little hope for. But since they've gone, all hope seems lost.

(Well, I do expect that those chains that give flat miles per stay for all airline partners, like BW and Choice, will end up with some flat number of points per stay with Southwest, of course. But I would not expect it to be necessarily any better with Southwest than with other airlines once they can "recalibrate".)

Preview of the possibilities through examining the programs RR 2.0 was "patterned after" seems difficult, since Elevate and TrueBlue seem so lacking in hotel and car rental partners...

sbm12

TrueBlue has a horrible earning rate with HHonors (their only hotel partner) that is dollar-based. For rental cars the only option is Hertz and there the earning rate is horrible but variably horrible depending on the duration of the rental. In both cases the Rapid Rewards 2 programs is significantly better for partner earning than TrueBlue is.

I'm not so sure that the doom & gloom predicted for partner earning is merited yet; I suppose we'll see. In the mean time the real question is whether the "half credit" earning that is now 600 points still has a decent value versus other programs. Crediting Hertz to VS, for example, was a pretty good deal for a while there. Dunno if it still is, but you could basically get a flight to London on points for about the same number of partner activities that would get you a RR1 award. Always a good idea to compare everything and make sure you're really getting the right value.