hhoope01

Why? I can't believe that there are a significant % of CP holders who received it completely via CCs. So you are recommending they make a change to affect a fairly small percentage of their customers.

Also, how should they implement this restriction? What if someone has both CCs but didn't receive both bonuses in the same year? If that is OK, now they have to check for holding both CCs and receiving 2 bonuses in the same year. But wait, what if they actually flew quite a bit as well, possibly even enough to get the CP on their flying? We don't want to exclude those, so they have to check for that too. Now, what about if they flew a lot but not quite enough for a CP? How much flying is "enough" such that having the 2 CCs and receiving the 2 bonuses won't stop them from receiving this benefit? What if they received only two 40K bonuses and flew the rest? Is that OK? If so we have to check for that now as well.

At the end of the day, I just can't see why or how they would implement this type of restriction only to affect what is probably a very small % of CP holders. And if they don't implement it perfectly and with all their customers clearly understanding the rules, they've just opened a can of worms with a lot of possible social media blasting for not being transparent or not doing the proper testing, etc.

So in my opinion it wouldn't be in Southwest's best interests (and not even close) to implement a restriction around how a CP were achieved on this benefit (should they decided to move forward with it.)

toomanybooks

I think there are quite a few who get it through the 2 CC method. Every blog and Facebook group pushes the heck out of it.

Or in the old days through a Marriott Travel package. Like me this year. Stopping transfers from counting toward CP likely will eliminate a bunch of CP holders in the future.

And of course many get it through 1 CC bonus plus flying/spending.

Are there that many people who fly a RT per week or spend $20k a year on WGA or $10k on BS?

Seems to me that disabling the bonus(es) counting toward CP ought not to be that challenging an IT project. I have been anticipating it for a while.

aaronp84

As someone who generally has to book flights through their corporate amex, yes. Very few of my points come from anything but hotel spend and butt in seat miles. At this point in the year, I'm at 152k/70k for AL+, 185k/110k for CP, and approaching 100 flights (long and short haul).

It seems to me that WN gives away a significant amount of free value to someone that has very seldom actually stepped foot onto a WN plane, and is not sustainable to give this to infrequent fliers that provide very little value revenue-wise to WN.

harold

If they are infrequent fliers, then the impact will be nominal. We're just talking about a companion getting a better boarding position, not winning the lottery.

aaronp84

I was referring back to the folks that get the CP through basically nothing but CC sign up bonuses.

I generally agree that the effect will be minimal on boarding order, if anything at all.

ursine1

Chase pays Southwest for those points. We've discussed this many times, but the point at which Southwest decides that the revenue generated no longer positively offsets the cost of CP use by those customers is the point at which they will no longer offer it as a potential credit card perk.

mile ho

I get the CP and A+ by flying only. Haven't gotten a new WN CC in many years.

I super glad they are about to do this and am not worried in the least on allowing others who got it by CC to benefit. Just makes good sense to me.

betsifur

We get a companion pass each year through a combo of flying and spend, but mostly spend. I don't churn cards because I don't have the time or inclination to do so. The idea I see thrown around here that our pass is less valid because of how it's earned is just silly. I do hope this gets implemented after the trial. I've quit buying early bird for myself because it makes it a hassle when we want to change travel plans. Hubby is A List, but not very aggressive about seat saving, even when it's just a middle for me on a row a ways back.

jeffandnicole

But how often do those people fly? If they're only flying a few times a year, or less, Southwest and Chase is probably making out pretty nicely with the various annual fees, interest revenue and other income received from the use of the cards.

rsteinmetz70112

I agree.

Assume Chase pays Southwest a discounted $0.01 per point. The bonus nets Southwest $400-600. Many of the Companion tickets would sell for less than that at WGA fares. The marginal cost of service is probably far less that that, but Southwest really only loses revenue if they would have sold out that flight, which they seldom do.

SAPMAN

WN would already know history for 1) how many CP on each flight 2) what boarding pass number they or companion got. So it would not take much to determine how many more people would be in the line for each boarding group (A1-30, A31-60, B1-30, etc.) If only 2 or 3 more people per boarding group 95% of the time, it should be no problem.

Although it may eliminate a very small amount of revenue for those that on occasion (for 4+ hr flight) buy Early Bird for both. Most of the time people buy 1 EB (if they are not A list) and save the other seat. Never had an issue with saving a seat - but could happen if the companion gets a C + boarding number

cpatrick

Just writing back to confirm our data point: was able to board together in DEN as an A-list (me) / Companion (wife). We're not based in DEN. Asked the GA and she confirmed they were doing it, wife and I boarded together at A-20. We had just gotten our 2018 CP cards in the mail so didn't have to dig for any of the old ones!

Would seriously LOVE for this to become a thing elsewhere. I would say about 90% of the time I buy EBCI for the companion and we board together at her higher boarding spot.

captaink

Airline tickets are straightforward, so long as nothing changes. Of course, each traveler is gonna have n ticket changes per 100 trips. Assuming three types of traveler (rare or no changes/some changes/many changes), the chance of ticketing issues compounds rapidly because the people whose plans are the least firm are usually the ones taking the most trips (i.e. CP'ers with A-List/Preferred status). Some of the issues don't manifest in the wild until a truly improbable combination of circumstances crops up that no tester could have imagined (CP reservation with one name misspelled & corrected, flight cancelled & rebooked at a lower fare, special services, the list goes on).

Eliminating GA procedure training because you don't think anything could ever break the process that prints "A16 [companion]" on a BP just means a FT megathread of "WN Didn't let my companion board with me [Consolidated]" complaints. In short, to say there could be an IT solution to every business process ignores the better question of if there should be an IT solution.

When I'm flying AA with a non-status companion, GA's have always been able to handle them boarding with me with no fuss or IT coding to print my status on their BP (I usually indicate we are traveling together). And while WN has open seating, it's hard to make a case that B59 got stuck in a worse seat because A16 had a companion that would have otherwise been B60 (Assuming that traveling companions always sit adjacent, one of them would be in a middle seat).

Mort

Ditto! My wife travels with me more than twenty times a year, and I have to save a seat for her each time. It's not a big deal to save a middle seat, but I still would rather not have to do it. It's can be a touchy subject.

captaink

I agree on the seat saving, though usually it's only an issue when someone wants to save a seat for their companion *and* get the open middle between them, or save a seat in a bulkhead/exit row where some people might value the middle in that row over an aisle further back.

I gave up on expecting or even predicting my chances of getting a certain seat with a certain boarding position after I got 12A with a B40 position one flight after having to go to the back of the plane for an aisle with A45.