maxima01

I have noticed that there are many R/T ticketless travel vouchers on sale on eBay. There were many on auction when I checked today, looks like a lot of people are trying to turn their rewards into cash. From what I saw, looks like the average price was $300+. Almost all auctions are for a book of 12 drink coupons, plus a FREE R/T voucher. My guess would be this is how they skirt the laws against some sort of ticket scalping.

Does anyone know if SW frowns on this auctioning of rewards? Or if this is illegal or against SW's policies?
From looking at feedback of many purchasers of these tix, most seem to be extremely satisfied. Seems to be some people are making some nice money on the side doing this.

Speak up if you have bought or sold any of your SW rewards on eBay. Would like to hear people's experiences.

Thanks!

kgsd

I have never done any buying or selling of RR awards on ebay. From what I hear, though, WN "looks the other way."

nsx

There is no law prohibiting sale of RR awards. Sale violates the program rules, meaning that Southwest can revoke your awards. The drink coupon nonsense makes no difference, since the transaction is obviously sale of a RR ticket.

Does Southwest enforce this? Perhaps not. We haven't seen posts here (as there have been in other airlines' forums) from repentant ebay sellers. Is Southwest entitled to enforce their rules whenever they want? Absolutely.

I've said it before, but I believe that eBay sales are the one thing that will end bonus credits if anything does. Each such sale represents probable lost revenue to Southwest greater than the amount of the sale. Ebay sales give Southwest's financial people all the hard data they need to beat on the marketing people about how much money the bonus credit offers are costing.

jmoreita

When it comes to the buying and selling of Rapid Reward tickets Southwest is
"caught between a rock and a hard place" so to speak. As I would wager that they would lose more revenue than they would gain if they were to start enforceing the "no sale" rule.

There are many frequent flyers that transfer their credit card mileage over to Southwest with the intent of selling their awards. For which Southwest is paid by the credit card company. This would end.

There are many Rapid Reward members who fly Southwest Airlines, knowing that they can sell their Rapid Rewards. And if Southwest were to "get tough" they would chose another airline where they could earn elite status, as well as mileage that doesn't expire in twelve months.

For each Rapid Reward ticket sold on eBay, only a portion of those passengers would purchase their tickets from Southwest Airlines.

For each Rapid Reward ticket sold on eBay, if not sold it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be used. Southwest may not gain anything by stopping John from selling his ticket to Bill. Bill might buy his ticket from another airline, and John still might use his ticket on Southwest.

For the above stated reasons IMHO I think Southwest would lose more than they would gain by stopping the sale of Rapid Reward tickets. I'm sure others will disagree, but none of us know for sure. And why would Southwest want to fix something that's not really broken. Rapid Rewards have been bought and sold since day one of the program, and Southwest is the only airline making money. Why change.

WN LUVS U

The selling of award tickets on eBay is watched more than what people think. In the next few days you will see a minor change to the ticketing process. IMO, it's all relative.

ginandtacos.com

*looks around nervously*

Well, I've sold one. It was a pretty smooth process.

gregorygrady

FRAUD!!! CHEAT!!!!! FELON!!!!!! LOW-LIFE!!!!!!! CRIMINAL!!!!


LYNCH HIM!!!!!!!

J/K

gregorygrady

Possibly, but that's about all that's done by SWA. They sit there and WATCH as hundreds are sold every week.


Hmmmm, interesting...................good thing I dumped all mine recently at the ~$40 overinflated Ebay prices of the last 2 weeks.

Dan Burgess

My friends and family members call me too much. I never get to sell one for true market value online; I either use them personally (~60%), give them as birthday gifts for people to visit us (~30%), or sell to them to family and friends at a (generous?) rate of $200 (~10%). Just yesterday my sister-in-law asked me if she could fly from Austin to Omaha this weekend, and after a ten-minute phone call with a friendly lady at Southwest, I had redeemed an award for a family member on an unpublished routing. It couldn't have been easier or more pleasant.

Regarding the airline watching online sales, so far they have focused on making money by efficiently hauling passengers around the country, and have chosen not to crack down on minor matters like award selling. But with the upcoming 50-poung bag rule, perhaps a new trend has begun?

It's painful to extrapolate that trend to the worst-case scenario, which would be a limit of two 50-lb checked bags, daily capacity controls on award redemption and/or inability to transfer awards, and $100 reservation change fees. *shudder*

Mr. July

I don't know - we're already down a bit of a slippery slope. When I ask for peanuts instead of those awful Ritz sticks, I no longer get a handful thrown at me, but just one extra bag or, if I'm lucky, two extra bags and a nervous glance around the cabin.

Find that most of my extra RR tickets are useful for facilitating group travel - for example, if a friend wants to to to LAS but cheap seats are sold out on the return, I have everyone pretty well trained to know that if they book my outbound (on, say, a $99 fare), I'll book the return (as well as mine) on RR tickets. We're traveling on the same flight and I get flight credit that I wouldn't see if I used RR to go both ways. Never had to resort to an outright public sale of a ticket.

xFlagger

Boy, that was smart!

Mental note to self: Don't drink gin before posting on Flyertalk.

CF

mt.sthelens

It is interesting, but also potentially alarming. If you have to treat or cheat uncle sam on the tax day.

.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...nline_auctions

goingsomewhere

I will never sell any of my RR tix or will buy them.

I have plenty enough for those around for myself and those around me. And, I never like sharing personal information with strangers. No telling what strangers will do with your info.

gregorygrady

Yeah whatever..................... Like I'd ever pay taxed on something I sold on Ebay...............

And if people are selling RR tix on Ebay, they for sure don't mind breaking the rules somewhat, I'm sure it would be no different with their taxes.......

Dunbar

I wonder why they sell go for $300 plus? Must be for longer haul trips...