nsx

Tell her that your family is from Sicily and you owed them a few favors.

bellwilliam

I own a small business. my vendors allows me to purchase using my credit card. I have received over 200 credits per year (for the last 3 years) between me and my wife's SWA card. I give RR to my employees to fly around the country. and yes I sometime do sell them to my buddies. Why don't I just give to them? you ask: because I rather just give them a $100 bill !! as I value RR ticket at about $300. but because they are my buddie, I will sell it to them at discount.

because of all the hassels (from SWA) and worrying about my employees getting stuck at airport (havent yet), because of same warning letter I received, I stopped using my SWA card. Stardwood AMEX is a better deal. Business owners don't want headaches. why bother with a bad RR program when there are other better RR programs around !!

yeah, I also don't fly SWA exclusively any more. I now shop base on pricing only !!

I used to hang around SWA forum everyday, because SW used to be the BEST (by far) with its RR program !! no more, SWA is now like those bankrupted airlines. Why are you guys still hanging around here? why do you care what SWA do now?

wrose99

Your vendors really are generous. It's costing them more to accept your SPG amex than when you paid with your SWA card.

gregorygrady

But it's costing the vendors less than what they would have lost if bellwilliam took his business to other vendors that DID accept CCs.

4BandE

I don't get it. What makes SWA's program "so bad?" I can't SELL my FREE tickets?!? Instead of having to pay for hotel rooms now, you just have to pay for plane tickets to use those free hotels.

DallasBill

He can easily transfer those SPG points... to American, for example. And since he never needed all the RRs to begin with, now he can fly and stay for free. ^

nd_eric_77

Another way of looking at it is that you can't SELL your THING OF VALUE which you EARNED (either through loyalty to WN or loyalty to partner programs). I find it rather misleading to refer to reward tix or hotel stays or merchandise (with any program) as "free". They are things of value which was earned in some way.

L Dude 7

Something can be earned and still be free. Southwest chooses to reward its loyal customers with a non-cash reward. If they intended it to be a cash reward, they could just give everyone $600 after they accumulate 16 credits. This would be extremely costly to them, and thus drive up the price of all other tickets. (Would it make sense to give somebody $600 after they spent $240?)

Instead they chose to reward people with something that has a low value to them (seats that would otherwise be empty) and a high value to the customer (a seat that may otherwise cost $600). To ensure that it is beneficial to both parties, they restrict the sale of the reward.

JS

I agree, but with one exception -- other than blackout dates, Rapids Rewards tickets have no capacity controls. So, a RR seat could have been sold, which A) makes RR tickets valuable for buyers (i.e., paying $300 for what would be a $600 last-minute trip) and for the same reason, B) is why Southwest is going after RR sellers. That's $600 in lost revenue.

Southwest can see what's coming in the future -- chronically high fuel costs, ever-higher labor costs, and ever-expanding LCC competition, and cracking down on revenue leakage such as RR sales is just one of the tools Southwest is using to avoid joining the league of bankrupt legacy carriers. ^

4BandE

It really depends on how you look at it. If the "earned item" was received that required no extra out of pocket expenses (or time) rather than an alternative (such as flying another airline for less), then to the recipient it was free because the earning of the item was secondary (or not even a consideration when making that arrangement).

Loyalty programs push people over the fence when there is a choice, but when I have to fly from OAK to Southern California, there really is no "choice" in terms of convinience, thus the "free" (or you say "earned") ticket is just an extra perk.

4BandE

True, but the fact that he can't "sell" his tickets, doesn't make the RR program "bad". It may not fit his travel style. The intent of the RR program is not to allow member to make money off of RR tickets, which sounds like the reason bellwilliam made the switch.

ProTexana

There appear to be a good # of RR tix for sale right now on ebay.com

search terms / results

southwest airlines / 391
southwest airlines rapid rewards / 21
rapid rewards / 34
swa / 76

DallasBill

He didn't say that -- he said "...because of all the hassels (from SWA) and worrying about my employees getting stuck at airport (havent yet), because of same warning letter I received, I stopped using my SWA card " So, he had multiple worries, and he stopped giving all his business to the SWA credit card company too.

As to the ultimate intent of the RR program now, I think that's what this thread is all about. As a businessman, bellwilliam decided it was a "bad" program for him, so he left. Simple as that.

yanxfann

For those that still want to sell their RR tickets but are discouraged by the recent periodic ebay "crackdowns" keep in mind that is more than one way to skin a cat and ebay isn't the ONLY game in town.

Case in point: I know someone who in the past week or so sold a RR award to an "internet stranger" that needed one short-notice roundtrip, to minimize any possiblility of problems with what some call the Rapid Rewards Police the seller did the following:

1. DID NOT use ebay
2. DID NOT use a ticket broker
3. Actually spoke on the phone to the eventual buyer before the sale to explain the ins and outs of using the award and to "get their story straight" in the highly unlikely event that questions were asked (they weren't of course)

The end result was a win/win situation for the two parties involved: after expenses the seller ended up with slightly over $375 in their pocket and the buyer saved $200+ from what they would have had to pay for a "normal" ticket.

If I wanted to sell a RR voucher today I definitely would not use ebay for several reasons:

1. There is so much competition on ebay that you can actually receive more money selling via other venues - I don't see many ebay sellers pocketing slightly over $375 after expenses for a R/T RR award

2. If push comes to shove ebay WILL drop a dime on you if a vendor like SWA pressures them to do so - I know this as an absolute fact from an incident where ebay released a family member's registration info to Starwood, this person had sold an SPG50 voucher (for a whopping $30). Starwood is notorious for aggressively pursuing ebay sellers of their items and ebay definitely cooperates by releasing those sellers' registration info - that being said to the best of my knowledge SWA doesn't go that far (yet) but if they wanted to they could.

3. I've seen where some sellers that have had their auctions for RR's removed by ebay have said that they just simply relist their auctions and the relisted auctions oftentimes go thru without a hitch. In my view sellers like this are definitely rolling the dice because if they insist on snubbing their nose at ebay by continually relisting items that have been removed they run the risk of being what is called "NARUed" - being totally suspended and termed Not A Registered User.

L Dude 7

You forgot to mention the losers:
1) All Southwest fliers that buy their tickets. They have to pay more for the tickets because the buyer dishonestly frauded Southwest out of $200+
2) Other frequent fliers that accumulate large amounts of RR tickets. Because some people choose to violate the rules and sell tickets, the airline is forced to crackdown on award redemptions. This has resulted in some people receiving letters after (honestly) giving their tickets away. It may also lead to increased restrictions on the ticket redemptions (capacity controls, blackouts, restricted transfers)
3) Southwest. They have lost revenue. They have also needed to devote additional resources to deal with people who violate the terms and conditions of the reward program.

There are plenty of ways to make money selling Rapid Rewards tickets. However, they are all in violation of the terms of the program, which specifically states that the reward tickets cannot be sold.