lexdevil

The problem I have with this is that the TQP don't help towards # of flights. I fly a lot, but on cheap fares, so the points I get from Southwest spend on the Chase card (say 6,000 TQP annually) don't really get me any closer to my goal. If they got me closer, I might be tempted to switch a few more trips to Southwest to reach the next level.

joshua362

Per card - I did max out one card one year and started using the other to get over the A+ hump. But it's a hard, long road to hoe for dubious benefits other than the 100% point multiplier.

toomanybooks

That is a LOT of spending on an inferior card.

lexdevil

Yup. That's why I only use it for Southwest spend to hit the CP. If I don't think I can hit CP on flights and Southwest spend, the Southwest tickets (up to around $40k) will go on the CSR instead. Unless I move on to the Platinum AmEx, but I'm not going to do that without a 100k point offer (which they keep offering my husband, and only offering me 50k). Goofy given that 1)I'm the one who travels for work, 2)I'm the one with over $100k in travel spend each year, and 3)I earn twice what he does. Their marketing folks are dumb.

mdurette

Well....I'm the OP. After spending the day researching and checking pricing for a handful of future trips with other airlines here is what I have come up with:

1. Keeping the MR points for use with hotels is useless for me. (we are timeshare users)
2. The TP will still get me more flight points vs a simple Marriott to airline transfer.
3. It will be a coin toss if the TP is with SW or JetBlue. SW may win because of their easy change policy.
4. I need my points usage to be in the form of flights.

Whichever I end up - SW or JB, I will supplement what would have been CP with transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards.

5. I will apply for a SW visa via a referral from my husband and should get 50,000 SW points as a start to building up the SW points needed to get the CP.

First time in about 5 years I'm sitting here without a CP and realize how valuable it really is now that I'm pricing out flights that are running about $900 round trip. (high demand school vacation weeks)

Tanic

Yes you can. But it requires an insane $100,000.00 in spend to get just 15k TQP.

Interestingly this feature is no longer on Chase landing pages.

Critterlynn

If you're a timeshare user and MR points are useless, how did you acquire so many?

Just curious.

mymousecapades

Thanks for this post, and the follow up. I'm also really unsure of what to do because I've spent at least the past 9 months training my brain to make every decision solely for this -- both how to earn it, then how to spend it. Silly, perhaps.

I think, for me, I'll still do the TP with SW. I was hoping the CP would allow my husband and I to take about 10-12 roundtrip flights that we already had planned, so I spent today just thinking -- ok, we'll only get 5-6 roundtrip flights with the same amount of points. MAJOR bummer, but what else can we do?

I considered transferring to United or American, but we honestly don't fly them much, and we still value Southwest's change/cancel policies because we are absolutely the type to book a weekend getaway on a whim, then figure out the details later, lol.

I wanted to apply for the two SW cards and get the CP by mid-year at the latest, but I'm at 4/24 and my husband is at 7/24, so we won't be able to get two cards at once. Gah, this sucks!

kenban

I doubt I need to say it but my points are at Marriott right now. My plan is still to do the travel package. I just cannot get anywhere near the same value doing any other type of redemption.

But I doubt I will transfer the miles to Southwest. More then likely I will go with AA because that is my default airline. I will be stuck with more miles then I like considering there is always a risk of a devaluation but I would prefer getting one business class round trip to Asia then a handful of domestic trips which I will just pay cash for.

lexdevil

I know that its premium cabins are not the best, but you'll get more bang for your buck/points by transferring to United, due to the Rewards Plus program that links the two. I usually book 2-3 saver seats SFO-LHR in Global First each summer, and it's "aight." Hard product is strong, soft product lags. United's award availability is decent, and unlike American, it allows you to book a saver coach award (if that is all that is available) and wait list the saver Business or Global First Award. They pull the points and make you pay the taxes on the higher award, but they reimburse you if you don't make it off of the wait list. I've always made it off of the wait list. If you're careful about the flights you book, you're likely to have good luck.

joshua362

For sure. I believe it was during the days of CVS & Vanilla reloads though so lots of MS and time consuming recordkeeping.

Cledaybuck

Unless I am missing something, $40k spend on Southwest tickets should get you CP easily (unless you aren't the one doing the flying).

mdurette

I would say 80% is pure credit card usage and the other 20% is from room charges at Marriott timeshares and a few one night stays paid out of pocket.

lexdevil

I'm not the only one doing the flying. I tend to make 10-15 RTs on Southwest each year, but I am usually traveling with groups for whom I purchase all of the tickets. I only just got the Southwest card in May, and with the bonus and putting all Southwest purchases on it, I earned CP in November.

Before we get too far into 2017, I need to look at my likely travel for the year to see if I can earn CP again without the card signup bonus, but with a full year's worth of ticket purchases. I also have to figure out how much the CP is really worth to me. I travel quite a bit for work, and only take a few trips with my husband each year. As a result, it's unclear whether the CP is really more valuable to me than just taking the 3x UR points on all of that Southwest spend.

flyer4512

What routes are you guys flying that you get even decent redemptions on UA or AA ?

Our usual routes which we fly about 6 times per year ( combined) are MSP to/from BDL/TPA/RSW/LAS.

For our MSP/ BDL I can get 25K R/T Non stop flights on DL, about 25K on WN with stops. UA/AA are 50K with stops.

For our MSP to TPA/RSW/LAS flights we pay less than 25K R/T on WN and I am seeing the same 50K on UA and AA.

For UA I am also seeing many dates ( even ~330 days out ) are showing limited award availability.

I had to pay 30K miles on AA one way for a LSE/BDL flights as I have wedding in the area and need to fly out the next day.