Two pax, single PNR: Convert ˝ to companion?
Jun 26, 2008, 5:42 pm
#1
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
Two pax, single PNR: Convert ˝ to companion?
Surely this has been asked before, but hours of searching proved fruitless. Suppose two pax are booked on a paid flight and one of the two earns a companion pass well before the travel date. Is it possible to convert the paid companion booking to a CP booking?
Also, regarding earning the 100th credit, the web site says "must be earned by [date]", where [date] is the one-year anniversary of the oldest credit in the past year. Is the earning period thus effectively 366 days (367 days when the window includes a leap day)? That would mean 13 months of RR Visa credits could be counted, at least in some cases.
Also, regarding earning the 100th credit, the web site says "must be earned by [date]", where [date] is the one-year anniversary of the oldest credit in the past year. Is the earning period thus effectively 366 days (367 days when the window includes a leap day)? That would mean 13 months of RR Visa credits could be counted, at least in some cases.
Jun 26, 2008, 6:34 pm
#2
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: ORD, MDW or MKE
Programs: American and Southwest. Hilton and Marriott hotels primarily.
Posts: 6,459
Jun 26, 2008, 7:26 pm
#3
Moderator: Southwest Airlines, Capital One
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: California
Programs: WN Companion Pass, A-list preferred, Hyatt Globalist; United Club Lietime (sic) Member
Posts: 21,618
Jun 27, 2008, 5:48 am
#4
Join Date: May 2003
Location: VA
Programs: Marriott: LTP
Posts: 386
Also, regarding earning the 100th credit, the web site says "must be earned by [date]", where [date] is the one-year anniversary of the oldest credit in the past year. Is the earning period thus effectively 366 days (367 days when the window includes a leap day)? That would mean 13 months of RR Visa credits could be counted, at least in some cases.
. I could see where this could work against you--lets say your billing cycle closes on the 29th. You start your "100 credits must be earned by" date on 28 Feb in a non-leap year (assuming they move your billing date by a day earlier in a non-leap year). The next year is a leap year and they post the RR points on your normal billing cycle date (Feb 29th)....
Jun 27, 2008, 1:50 pm
#5
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
True enough...but my post was counting the number of days in a CP earnings period, not the number of days in a year.
I should have noticed the incongruity long ago, but what triggered it now is that I just booked a flight on the exact one-year anniversary of my current oldest qualifying credit for CP qualification. These are not the actual dates, but they serve to demonstrate the issue:
The issue is not unique to CP qualification. The 24-month period for earning an award is similarly impacted. It appears customers have 731 days, instead of the expected 730 days, to earn 16 credits for an award.
I should have noticed the incongruity long ago, but what triggered it now is that I just booked a flight on the exact one-year anniversary of my current oldest qualifying credit for CP qualification. These are not the actual dates, but they serve to demonstrate the issue:
- Oldest credit that qualifies for CP: 7/15/07
- 100th credit must be earned by: 7/15/08
The issue is not unique to CP qualification. The 24-month period for earning an award is similarly impacted. It appears customers have 731 days, instead of the expected 730 days, to earn 16 credits for an award.
Jun 28, 2008, 5:34 am
#6
Join Date: May 2003
Location: VA
Programs: Marriott: LTP
Posts: 386
This works out well with the CC (except if something goes haywire with your CC company and the billing date moves forward by 1 day.
)
Jun 28, 2008, 2:21 pm
#7
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
I think my RR Visa is the only credit card I have where the closing date has never changed. Other cards have closing dates that drift by a day or two or three, and seem to avoid weekend closing dates. Most of my cards are not with Chase, though, so maybe the constant close date applies to most/all Chase cards?
In any event, if the date did shift by a day in the wrong direction, it would only put you back to the expected circumstance of 12 statements counting within the 1 year earning period.
Apologies for forgetting to include in my previous post thanks to you and nsx for the information about phoning for help with the conversion of a paid rez to a companion rez. I was hoping the CSR magicians could pull that off. Now I just need to decide whether to "go for" the CP or not. It is a very tough decision!
In any event, if the date did shift by a day in the wrong direction, it would only put you back to the expected circumstance of 12 statements counting within the 1 year earning period.
Apologies for forgetting to include in my previous post thanks to you and nsx for the information about phoning for help with the conversion of a paid rez to a companion rez. I was hoping the CSR magicians could pull that off. Now I just need to decide whether to "go for" the CP or not. It is a very tough decision!
Jul 3, 2008, 1:39 pm
#8
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
If I'd known this topic would end up dominating the thread, I'd have put it in a thread of its own! 
Mea culpa.
Anyway I now have a theory for why it works this way. Suppose your oldest RR credit is from a 9:30PM flight on 15-July-2008. For various reasons it makes sense that Rapid Rewards doesn't want to have to track earning dates to the minute. From a customer perspective, though, suppose the last day of the award earning period was set to 14-July-2010 instead of 15-July-2010. I could see customers being upset if earning magic credit 16 on a 6:30AM flight on 15-July-2010, about 15 hours shy of a full 24 month expiration of the oldest credit, were not good enough. The easy way to avoid that problem is to count both 15-July-2008 and 15-July-2010 in the earnings period. A side effect is that when the oldest active credit is from the RR Visa, 25 months of RR Visa credits may be counted (13 months for the CP). It may be fairly rare, but I am currently in that situation for CP purposes.
OTOH, a much simpler explanation is that whoever wrote the program that sets the cutoff dates just didn't notice they were granting an extra (partial) day. I hope Southwest claims the first explanation...even if they didn't actually think of it at the time.
Mea culpa.Anyway I now have a theory for why it works this way. Suppose your oldest RR credit is from a 9:30PM flight on 15-July-2008. For various reasons it makes sense that Rapid Rewards doesn't want to have to track earning dates to the minute. From a customer perspective, though, suppose the last day of the award earning period was set to 14-July-2010 instead of 15-July-2010. I could see customers being upset if earning magic credit 16 on a 6:30AM flight on 15-July-2010, about 15 hours shy of a full 24 month expiration of the oldest credit, were not good enough. The easy way to avoid that problem is to count both 15-July-2008 and 15-July-2010 in the earnings period. A side effect is that when the oldest active credit is from the RR Visa, 25 months of RR Visa credits may be counted (13 months for the CP). It may be fairly rare, but I am currently in that situation for CP purposes.
OTOH, a much simpler explanation is that whoever wrote the program that sets the cutoff dates just didn't notice they were granting an extra (partial) day. I hope Southwest claims the first explanation...even if they didn't actually think of it at the time.
Jul 3, 2008, 7:15 pm
#10
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Rockville, MD
Programs: Southwest Rapid Rewards, AAdvantage, Marriott Rewards Gold, Hilton HHonors Silver
Posts: 61
On the Chase website it seems to allow you to change the statement payment due date to a date of your choosing. I'm assuming that as a result the billing date also changes. That way if you change your billing date once a year, you should be able to ensure that 13 statements count toward your companion pass earnings. I have not tried this myself, however.