WNHHTraveler

This is crazy, but I can't I find anywhere on Southwest's website where it says how many points you get for a hotel stay. Not even in the overall terms and conditions. It used to be 600 points. I haven't credited hotels to Rapid Rewards for several years, so I'm just trying to verify that it's still 600 points per stay. Really frustrating that they don't just put this on their website. Unless I am missing it somewhere.

steved5480

Good catch.

Not crazy, more like a combination pizza of Southwest's IT shenanigans and/or Rapid Rewards folks jostling the rules without publicizing it. Looks like at least Hyatt still does the 600 point thing; several of the others appear a bit more complicated with point-swaps and the like. At first glance, it doesn't appear that I've been credited anything for hotel stays in recent times either. I'm wondering if some/all of the hotels may be like Hertz nowadays where you have to manually choose RR credit from the drop-down when booking, as they otherwise default to Hertz points, etc.

https://www.southwest.com/html/rapid...tel/index.html

Peoriaman1

Used to be, all hotel stays were 600 points (well, at member hotel chains that is). Then, a couple years ago it changed to where most hotel stays were based on one point per dollar. So, one night in a $90 hotel earned you just 90 points. But I found you can still make your reservation on the hotel's website and still earn 600 points. This has not failed me yet.

Note that this assumes you 1) have already signed up at that hotel's loyalty program, and 2) you have set your earnings preferences on the hotel's website to "earn partner airline's points" instead of the hotel's points. Hopefully I am not jinxing myself for posting this.

rove312

Or you can book on the Hotels section of southwest.com . Some hotels may show a higher price than on other sites, but give a high number of points.

Peoriaman1

Most are just one point per dollar. Certain select properties are higher (1000, 2000 points or more) but most are just one point per dollar. That's a change from what it was until recently, when they were all 600 points.

pinniped

I haven't found a scenario in years where crediting a hotel stay to airline miles made sense. I used to do it occasionally on one-night low-cost Hilton stays.

On paper, your first stay using Rocketmiles can theoretically make sense for earning miles. I played around with it...trying to find the intersection of a decent hotel at a decent rate that awarded a decent amount of miles. But ultimately that site seemed to mainly yield Motel 6's that earned few miles and regular Marriotts/Hiltons at artificially-high rates to earn miles. I never could find the sweet spot where their rate was only a *little* worse than direct-booking, at a hotel where the lack of status benefits would not mean much, and where I'd earn 5000+ miles (the bonuses they were advertising). I never could find it.

Earning airline miles on hotel stays was mainly a 1990's thing for me. Before I discovered Marriott Marquis and before the hotels were doing much with loyalty programs in general, beyond partnering with airlines.