Tag Archives: Southwest

Great Southwest Sale Nonstops for $49 to $149 Based on Distance

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | 5 Comments

Southwest is running my favorite type of its sales–the distance based ones. Oneways of the following lengths are the following discounted prices.

The great thing about these deals is that they are widely available, include two checked bags, and earn double points!

Here are the details:

Purchase by 11:59 PM on Thursday and travel Monday-Saturday from April 3 to June 8. There are city and systemwide blackouts also.

You don’t need any special promo code. You can just do a normal search on southwest.com. Only nonstop flights will be the advertised price–connecting flights will be a few dollars more.

As will all Southwest flights, you can cancel free of charge for a full credit on Southwest in the amount of your ticket, you can check two bags for free, and you can choose your own seat on the plane since there are no assigned seats.

Just yesterday I wrote about the ability to earn double points on Southwest flights through May 15; this sale is a great double dip.

Check out Southwest’s route map to see where you can fly nonstop from your home airport to take advantage of the LUV is in the Air sale.

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Double Southwest Points until May 15

Posted on February 4, 2013 by | 1 Comment

Register for the new Southwest Double Points promo that runs until May 15, 2013. Once registered, book and fly Southwest flights between now and May 15, and you will receive double redeemable Rapid Rewards points.

You have to register before booking a flight, so old bookings won’t earn double points.

Of course, you can cancel Southwest bookings for no fee, so if you have any previously booked Southwest flights planned for before May 15, you may want to cancel them and rebook after registering for the promotion if the price hasn’t gone up.

Normally the cheapest Southwest fares earn 6 points per dollar spent on them, which is worth about 10 cents worth of future Southwest travel. Under this promo, you will earn 12 points per dollar spent on the cheapest fares, which is about 20 cents worth of future Southwest travel. Full terms and conditions:

Southwest is also offering double tier points (toward status) on flights that originate or terminate in Milwaukee. Registering through the link above registers you for both promos. Full details:

Hat Tip Gary

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Southwest and AirTran Get Cozier: What It Means For You

Posted on February 3, 2013 by | 1 Comment

According to this thread on FlyerTalk, Southwest Airlines has started to display bookable AirTran flights on its own website. The first AirTran city pairs offered on Southwest.com are Atlanta <-> Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta <-> Fort Myers. A sample screenshot of the newly available flights is below.

These flights are still bookable on AirTran’s website. The prices for economy and business appear to be the same, though no equivalent to “Anytime” economy fares is offered by AirTran.

Why should I book AirTran flights on Southwest’s website?

You should book this flight through Southwest if you are flying in economy and checking a bag. Southwest allows two free checked bags. AirTran, on the other hand, charges $25 for the first checked bag and $35 for the second.

Why should I book AirTran flights on AirTran’s website?

AirTran offers the ability to select your seat. You pay for this privilege, though. The cheapest seats are $6 per segment. If you decline to pay, you can select your seat when checking in, no earlier than 24 hours before the flight.

If you are an AirTran elite, the seat selection fee is waived. You also receive free checked bags and the possibility of complimentary first class upgrades at the gate. It definitely makes sense to book with AirTran directly in this case.

What about earning? Is it better to earn A+ credits or Southwest Rapid Rewards points?

That depends on the price of the flights and how much you fly AirTran. Scott wrote a good post on How to Exploit the Southwest-AirTran Merger. He also detailed the conversion ratios between Rapid Rewards points, Rapid Rewards credits, and A+ credits. The exchange ratios are below:

  • 1,200 Rapid Rewards points converts to 1 A+ credit
  • 1 Rapid Rewards credit to 1 A+ credit
  • 1 Southwest Standard Award (two oneways) to 16 A+ credits
  • 1 A+ credit converts to 1 Rapid Rewards credit
  • 16 A+ credits can be used to fly two oneways on Airtran, and 16 Rapid Rewards credits can be used to fly two oneways on Southwest.

Some people are visual learners, so Southwest has a handy website to help explain all the possible conversions. They also produced a chart to show the available transfers.

If you are still reeling from all of this, here is a basic explanation. Rapid Rewards points are a fixed value point system. The number of points needed to book an award ticket is dictated by the price of the fare.

19,200 Rapid Rewards points are worth approximately $324 (1.69 cents each according to the Mile Value Calculator). The same 19,200 Rapid Rewards points convert into 16 A+ credits or 16 Rapid Rewards credits, which are enough for a roundtrip award ticket. 1,200 points = 1 credit.

If you can find an award ticket that costs more than approximately $324 cash, it makes sense to convert 19,200 Rapid Rewards points into credits for a standard AirTran or Southwest award. Just be sure to verify that there is standard award space on your desired flights before making the conversion.

So what’s the final call?

You must decide between Rapid Rewards points and credits. A standard roundtrip flight will earn 2 A+ credits, but the Rapid Rewards points you could earn vary depending on flight prices.

For example, if your roundtrip ticket earns 2,000 Rapid Rewards points versus 2 A+ credits for each segment, AirTran appears to be the site to book with. 2,400 Rapid Rewards points converts to 2 A+ credits. However, I don’t think you should always look at it from this standpoint.

More than anything, I value the flexibility of Rapid Rewards points over A+ credits. Unless you fly AirTran regularly, it might be hard to accumulate the 16 credits required for an award ticket.

Accumulating Rapid Rewards points allows you to book Southwest award flights when needed. You can also convert 19,200 points into 16 credits if the award you want costs more than approximately $324 out of pocket and there is standard award space available.

Recap

A few AirTran flights are now bookable on Southwest.com. I’m sure more will be added in the coming weeks as both carriers are inching (very slowly) towards completing their merger.

If you don’t hold elite status with AirTran, I would book any AirTran flights on Southwest’s website that I could. Checked bags are free and you earn Rapid Rewards points which can be used on Southwest flights. Rapid Rewards points also convert into A+ or Rapid Rewards credits, which could make sense if you are booking an award flight that costs more than $324.

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Southwest Announces New Fees That Make Perfect Sense

Posted on December 20, 2012 by | 1 Comment

According to this thread on FlyerTalk and this thread on Milepoint, Southwest will now start charging a no-show fee for those who fail to cancel their tickets before the flight departs.

Extra fees, especially on traveler-friendly Southwest, are never a good thing. But I am shocked that a fee like this wasn’t in place before. Now that it is, I honestly can’t blame them for implementing it. It makes sense to penalize when Southwest could resell the seat for a higher price at the last minute. You can still cancel a ticket before a flight with no penalty. Scott actually booked a Rapid Rewards award ticket for me to attend Frequent Traveler University a few weeks ago. When my plans changed, he was able to get back the points without any issues or charges.

Southwest also announced that its Early Bird Check-In fee would increase from $10 to $12.50. This isn’t an extra that ever struck my fancy. I am always diligent about checking in right at the 24 hour mark before my Southwest flights and usually ended up with a decent A or B zone boarding number. That’s enough to get an aisle or window somewhere on the plane. This move will help Southwest capture a bit more revenue for a service many people enjoy.

Of greater concern, though, is the fact that Southwest will begin charging more for a third checked bag. A third bag will now be $75, up from $50. The first and second bag remain free. Overweight baggage will also cost more ($50 fee is now $100).

This move can be seen as a way to minimize the lack of revenue from the first two free checked bags. A pessimist might view it as the beginning of the end of free checked bags on Southwest…..even though their “Bags Fly Free” mantra has endeared them to leisure travelers. For now, they remain the most friendly airline with regard to baggage and fees.

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Free Giveaway Friday: Oneway Trip to Anywhere Southwest Flies

Posted on December 7, 2012 by | 64 Comments

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I’m giving away a free oneway award on Southwest Airlines that must be flown by April 20, 2013. Specifically, I am giving away half of a standard award–a capacity-controlled award on Southwest Airlines. Standard awards are a relic of the old Rapid Rewards program.

Eight months ago, I converted 19,200 Rapid Rewards points to a Southwest standard award. I explained how to do that in How to Exploit the Southwest-Airtran Merger.

I did this because Southwest currently effectively operates two loyalty programs, a revenue based program and a chart-based program. The revenue program is the normal one where 60 points are needed per dollar of a fare. That’s a great program because cheap flights cost very few points–way fewer than domestic awards on legacy carriers.

See Anatomy of an Award: How to Book an Award on Southwest for details on how to book through the normal revenue process.

Southwest’s other “chart-based” program is a relic of its old program and its merger with AirTran. Basically 19,200 points can be transferred to one standard award, which is good for two free oneways on Southwest. Here’s a video on how to do those transfers.

This program works out to be a way better deal if the price of your two oneways is above about $330 total–not a hard threshold to pass on two flights. The only drawback is that standard award seats are capacity controlled like awards on the legacy carriers whereas revenue redemptions are not capacity controlled.

I don’t find this to be a big deal in practice because Southwest has incredible availability on the capacity controlled awards.

So in April 2012 I redeemed 19,200 points for a standard award. That award gave me 12 months to fly two oneways. I used one from LAX-MDW for the Chicago Seminars, and I used the other to book a return from IAD-LAX on my Triangle Award for $10 Out of Pocket award.

But then I cancelled the IAD-LAX leg to book Bill a return from the LAX FTU. (Free cancellations are an awesome facet of the Southwest program.) Then we cancelled that for Bill when his plans changed. I reinstated my IAD-LAX. Then I cancelled again when AA offered a direct flight for $109.

That leaves me with a free oneway on Southwest that can be used on any flight with Standard space by anybody until April 20, 2013. I can’t use it since I am moving to Argentina. I’m giving it away as follows:

To enter, comment with the date, flight number(s), and price of the oneway award you would want. There could be more than one flight because this award has to be oneway but not one segment. For instance, here are three oneway award possibilities from LAX to Norfolk, VA on February 6, 2013.

So if you wanted the top one, you would comment February 6, 502/410, $207. If you wanted the second one, you would comment February 6, 2173, $198.

Also include your real email address where prompted; it’s not displayed, and I will only use the winner’s to contact him.

Comments must be made by 6:59 PM Hawaiian Time/ 11:59 PM ET on Monday December 10 to have a chance to win. One entry per person.

Picking the winner

I want an expensive award to win, but I also want everyone to have a chance, so here’s what I’ve devised.

I will use a random number generator to select three sub-$170 entries to enter round two. I will take all over-$170 entries to round two. I will then use a random number generator to pick a winner from the entries in round two.

I’ll check whether the winner from round two has award space. If it does, that’s the winner. If not, I’ll select until I find an entry with award space.

Good luck. I hope someone wins who can really use a free oneway trip somewhere Southwest flies.

I’m on vacation in Hawaii until Wednesday, so I may not answer email. If you are emailing about the Award Booking Service, email milevaluebooking (at) gmail (dot) com

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Southwest, Virgin America, and Spirit Cyber Monday Deals

Posted on November 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Today only, there are some great deals on the non-legacy carriers.

Southwest

Southwest is offering oneway flights on Christmas Eve for $100 or less oneway. This could considerably cut down on your holiday fares, if you can combine the fare with a cheap oneway home. The full list of cities and T&C are here.

Here’s LAX’s list of sub-$100 destinations.

Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago stand out as steals. Here’s Chicago’s (MDW) list:

The discounted fares can also be purchased with fewer points. LAX to Atlanta is under 6,000 Rapid Rewards oneway.

Virgin America

Virgin America is offering 10% off specific routes between December 4 and March 6 using code CYBER10. See the full list of routes and terms and conditions here.

On top of that, if you are among the first 3k bookers, you will get free wi-fi on the flight. I just got the email about this minutes ago, so I think you have a good chance of that.

Virgin America is my second-favorite domestic in-flight experience behind JetBlue and just ahead of Hawaiian.

Spirit

Spirit has three deals that all expire at 11:59 PM ET today.

Take $50 off roundtrip travel November 28 and December 18 with promo code “50OFF”. Full terms and conditions, and book here.

Take $35 off roundtrip travel between December 19 and March 6 with promo code “35OFF”. Full terms and conditions, and book here.

Take $24 off roundtrip travel between March 7 and August 31 with promo code “24OFF”. Full terms and conditions, and book here.

You have until tomorrow at 11:59 PM ET to join the $9 fare club and take advantage of these $19.80 oneway fares. (Full T&C) Here are the options from New York:

There are a ton of options for the cheap fares, but you have to fly on select Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and you have to join the $9 fare club, which costs $60 per year, but grants benefits like exclusive sales and discounted bag fees.

Recap

Southwest, Virgin America, and Spirit are all having deals that end today that are worth looking at. Please factor in baggage fees when booking. Southwest allows two free checked bag, a free carry on, and a free personal item. Virgin allows one free checked bag, a free carry on, and a free personal item. Spirit allows a free personal item, but charges for checked bags and even your bigger carry on!

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Posted in Rapid Rewards, Spirit, Virgin America

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Reader Question: Should I transfer Southwest Points to AirTran Credits?

Posted on November 13, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Joanne writes:

“I have accumulated approximately 55,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards. I see that I have a Southwest flight credit that is expiring, and Southwest wants me to use 18,000 points to create a reward flight. I have my eye on a roundtrip award to Phoenix that costs 29,000 points. Is it worth it to do this? I am so confused. Any help is appreciated.”

I can sympathize with Joanne’s confusion. Southwest’s merger with Airtran has created several types of reward currencies between the two airlines including Rapid Rewards points, Rapid Rewards credits, Rapid Rewards awards, and A+ Credits. The good news is that the proliferation of currencies presents some pretty easy opportunities to get more value than normal from your Southwest and Airtran rewards.

Normally, Southwest Rapid Rewards are fixed value. You earn 6 per dollar spent on the cheapest fares, and you redeem 60 per dollar for any ticket in the cheapest fare class. I’ve discussed the standard redemption process before. See Anatomy of an Award: How to Book an Award on Southwest.

I’ve already detailed the main opportunity to stretch your Southwest point value too. If you transfer your Rapid Rewards points to A+ credits, then your new A+ credits to a Rapid Rewards award, you can get a roundtrip award (or two oneways) for 19,200 Rapid Rewards points. This process may sound complicated, but it takes about two minutes. See my post on this process titled How to Exploit the Southwest-Airtran Merger.

Let’s look at the the mechanics of the now allowable conversions between Rapid Rewards and A+ that I’ve been doing for the last seven months:

1,200 Rapid Rewards points converts to 1 A+ credit

1 Rapid Rewards credit to 1 A+ credit

1 Southwest Standard Award (two oneways) to 16 A+ credits

1 A+ credit converts to 1 Rapid Rewards credit

16 A+ credits can be used to fly two oneways on Airtran, and 16 Rapid Rewards credits can be used to fly two oneways on Southwest.

Joanne’s situation is that she has one Rapid Rewards credit and 55,000 Rapid Rewards points. Her credit is about to expire worthless. But since she has the credit for the moment, she only needs 15 more to get a Southwest Standard Award. That means she only needs 15 A+ credits, which means she only needs to convert 18,000 Rapid Rewards to get two free oneway or one free roundtrip. Or in visual form:

 

Is it a good deal for Joanne to transfer 18,000 Rapid Reward points in this manner? That answer depends on two things.

1) Would the roundtrip or two oneways she books with her newly minted Southwest Standard Award cost more than 18,000 Rapid Rewards?

2) Is there availability on the flights she wants with her Southwest Standard Award?

The first is easy to figure out. On any Southwest search results screen, you can toggle between seeing fares in dollars and seeing them in points.

Joanne found that the roundtrip she wanted to Phoenix cost 29,000 points, so 18,000 points would be a steal.

But would she be able to use her award for the flights she wanted? Southwest Standard Awards–unlike points awards–are capacity controlled, much the same way that United or American awards are capacity controlled.

To find out if the flights she wanted to Phoenix had award space, Joanne should call Southwest at 1-800-445-5764 to ask if those flights have standard award space. If they have the space, she can make the conversions and book over the phone without a phone-ticketing fee. Her 18,000 points will get her those 29,000-point flights.

In my experience, Southwest’s capacity-controlled awards have pretty phenomenal availability, so I don’t expect Joanne to have much of an issue getting the flights she wants.

How can you figure out if you should make points transfers like Joanne?

Because there are unlimited transfers between the programs, it means that we can use 19,200 (1,200 * 16) Rapid Rewards points for two free oneway trips on either airline.

19,200 Rapid Rewards points are worth about $324, so if you can find two oneways on either airline that cost more than that, you can profit from transferring.

In today’s airfare environment, finding a roundtrip or two oneways that cost more than that is pretty easy, especially since Airtran flies internationally to Mexico and the Caribbean.

Let’s go through some examples to show how to determine whether you can exploit the transfer options.

LAX-MDW-LAX for the dates I want costs $408, and I value it at that price because I need to get to Chicago, and there are no cheaper options. In Rapid Rewards points it costs 23,160 and $5. This is a prime example of a fare where exploiting the transfer options saves money!

Instead of paying cash or 23,160 points, I can transfer 19,200 Rapid Rewards points to A+ credits. The transfer is instantaneous. I can then immediately transfer 16 A+ credits to 16 Rapid Rewards credits. After that instantaneous transfer, I now have two free oneways on Southwest that I can use to fly LAX-MDW-LAX for just the same $5 in taxes.

So I got an itinerary for 19,200 Rapid Rewards points that should have cost me 23,160 Rapid Rewards points. Exploiting the transfers saved 3,960 Rapid Rewards points with a value of $63.54! Awesome!

Here’s an easy example of when not to transfer. I want to fly LAX-LAS-LAX, and the flights I want cost $114 or 5,520 Rapid  Rewards points and $5. Transferring 19,200 Rapid Rewards points to 16 A+ Credits to 16 Rapid Rewards credits would be folly. Instead I would just book with 5,520 points and $5.

Now that you know when to transfer, here’s how to transfer. It’s incredibly easy.

  • Log in to your Southwest account on the right side of southwest.com
  • Click on the My Account link that appears where you typed your password.
  • Click on the My Rapid Rewards tab.
  • Choose the Transfer Between A+ Rewards and Rapid Rewards button on the left side of the page.
  • Type in your Airtran account information, then follow the instructions to transfer Rapid Rewards points to A+ Credits (then A+ credits to Rapid Rewards credits if you are booking with Southwest)

Recap

This transfer option has made Southwest’s program much more lucrative for the last seven months. For short cheap flights, the normal points price will remain incredibly low, sometimes just a few thousand points for a roundtrip. For longer, more expensive flights, though, a roundtrip is effectively capped at 19,200 points, so we get the best of both worlds: points-cheap short trips and points-cheap long trips.

I hope everyone seriously looks into these transfers for their ability to use up orphaned Rapid Rewards credits, use up orphaned A+ credits, and save a bundle on expensive Airtran and Southwest flights.

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Posted in Airtran, Rapid Rewards

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Free Giveaway, 15 AA Miles per Dollar for Breast Cancer Donation, Always Get Southwest Group A

Posted on October 19, 2012 by | 15 Comments

There are some great deals and tips kicking around the web that were already written up perfectly. I have added a few notes, and hopefully the aggregation will be useful.

1) Mile Nerd flags the opportunity to earn 15 American Airlines miles per dollar on donations during October–Breast Cancer Awareness Month–to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Donate through the link on this page. Full terms and conditions:

If you were already intending to donate, this is a great deal. Here is my previous post on the implications of earning miles for charity donations.

2) Million Mile Secrets writes about a new tool that automatically checks you in for your Southwest flight 24 hours before departure, so that you can get in the A boarding group. That’s important because Southwest has open seating, so the first ones on get the best seats and bin space.

I checked in for my Southwest flight to Chicago last week only about 12 hours in advance. I got a C boarding group. I did get a second-row window seat–my preference for flights when I want to sleep–because no one had wanted to ask the very old lady to stand up in the middle seat. It was a totally full flight, though, so I didn’t mind.

Here are my two best tips for a good Southwest seat:

  • If you fly a direct, one stop flight, which are very common on Southwest, you can move seats at the stop. When I flew Burbank to Las Vegas to Tampa on the same plane, I had a junk seat the first hour, but the last four hours, I had a window bulkhead.
  • Take the middle bulkhead seat for extra legroom. It is usually open until very late in the boarding process. For me leg room is more important than elbow room, and this seat delivers.

3) The Points Guy flags a pretty incredible Starwood promo that rebates 30-50% of the cost of a full points (not Cash & Points) award on a short–but incredible–list of resorts. This promo, in many cases, gets you the room for the same number of points as a Cash & Points award without the cash component!

You have to register by November 30 and stay by December 21. There are some great warm weather locations and some great ski locations, so this could be an incredible deal for many people.

4) Flying Blue has released its quarterly discount awards. You can fly on select North America to Europe routes for 25k Flying Blue points roundtrip in economy or 50k in business. AMEX Membership Rewards transfer to Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio. The bad news is that Flying Blue levies surcharges that can approach $1,000 per person.

Here is a list of the North American cities with promos.

5) It’s Free Giveaway Friday. I’m working through my last few gogo single-flight internet passes. I had the chance to use one myself coming from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was great for writing blog posts and listening to Spotify.

Friday’s winner of the gogo pass was Ketan. Lucky him: he can read MileValue for free from 35k feet.

Comment below for your chance to win a single-flight gogo internet pass that expires 12/31/12.

Gogo internet is available on select planes on Air Canada, AirTran, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, United, US Airways, and Virgin America.

If you ever have something travel related that you want to give away, let me know.

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Posted in AAdvantage, Flying Blue, Free Giveaway, Rapid Rewards, SPG

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Anatomy of an Award: How to Book an Award on Southwest

Posted on October 18, 2012 by | 8 Comments

The other day I helped a friend book a roundtrip Southwest award from Los Angeles to Denver for 11,761 Rapid Rewards and $5, taking advantage of a 1,000 Ultimate Rewards transfer to make up a shortfall of points in her account. For some people, this post will be very basic. But this post touches on some topics of interest to all, including the valuation of Southwest points–not 1.67 cents as commonly thought.

Most of my friends know that I am miles obsessed–perhaps because I wear MileValue tank tops and t-shirts to dodgeball pretty frequently. They generally combine jealousy of my trips with indifference or skepticism toward my methods. I only hear from them a few weeks before a trip: “How can I get a cheap ticket from XYZ to ABC in a few weeks?” I always suggest using kayak.com, and applying for a credit card now for their next trip.

So when my friend Allison said she wanted to go from LAX to Denver in a few weeks, and she had Southwest points, I was happy to help someone whom I could actually help. We signed into her account, and she had 11,659 Rapid Rewards. That’s about $200 worth of travel, so we searched for flights to see what we could do.

Rapid Rewards Primer

Southwest has a very different frequent flier program than the legacy carriers’ programs you may be more familiar with. Southwest has a revenue based program. Purchased Wanna Get Away fares earn 6 Rapid Rewards per dollar of base fare plus excise taxes. (10-12 if you buy a more expensive fare type.) Then you can use those points on any Wanna Get Away fare at a rate of 60 Rapid Rewards per dollar of base fare.

That means that the program basically amounts to a 10% credit on purchased fares, which can be used on future flights.

The 60 Rapid Rewards per dollar formula also means that you can score domestic awards for way fewer than 25,000 miles, the rate that the American legacy carriers charge. A $100 roundtrip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas would be fewer than 6,000 miles.

And I want to mention as many times as I can that Southwest domestic awards are temporarily capped at 19,200 points per roundtrip, subject to availability, because of a trick that exploits Southwest’s merger with AirTran. See How to Exploit the Southwest-AirTran Merger. This trick is useful when roundtrips are over $330 or so. It was not useful in Allison’s case.

How to Book a Southwest Award

Once signed into your account, perform a regular flight search on the home page, typing in your cities and dates.

On the results screen, you can toggle between seeing fares in dollars and seeing them in points.

If you’re happy with the prices or your dates are inflexible, you can choose the best flight for you. If you are flexible, click on the dates above the results for the fares on those dates. Or click Try our Low Fare Calendar to see a month-long view.

The total price of Allison’s preferred flights was 11,761 Rapid Rewards and $5. Allison only had 11,659 points, so she needed 102 more.

Southwest sells points directly for 2.5 cents per point with a minimum purchase of 2,000 points for $50.

This might be a decent deal if you need to top off for an award, and you have no other options. But in general 2.5 cents for a Rapid Reward is steep.

Luckily, there is a better option. Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer to Rapid Rewards instantly at a 1:1 rate. After clicking on your Ultimate Rewards balance after signing into your Chase account, select a transfer to Southwest.

Ultimate Rewards can be transferred instantly to your Rapid Rewards account in increments of 1,000.

The points transferred instantly, and we ticketed the award in a matter of moments.

For 11,761 points and $5, she had her flights to Denver booked. For comparison, the cash ticket on the same flights would have cost $217.60.

And here’s how that $217.60 breaks down:

Only $196 was the base fare plus the excise taxes. $5 was the 9/11 Security Fee. The rest was Segment Fees and Passenger Facility Charges. From taking a close look at Southwest award pricing in previous posts–see How Much is a Rapid Reward Worth?–I know that the award price is calculated as 60 times the base fare plus excise taxes. 11,761 points equals 196 times 60 (plus a phantom 1 that seems to be a part of all the awards I price on Southwest.com lately.)

Here’s where some confusion occurs. Rapid Rewards are often valued at 1.67 cents because 60 of them equals $1 of flying. But awards don’t include some fees and charges that cash tickets do include, and that valuation doesn’t take into account that paid flights don’t earn points.

For Allison’s flight 11,761 Rapid Rewards + $5 equaled a cash ticket that cost $217.60 and would have earned 1,176 Rapid Rewards. Typing those numbers into the fields of the MileValue Mile Value Calculator, we find that she earned 1.64 cents per point from her award. (Plug in 217.6, 5, 11761, 1176.)

Ticket Value ($)
Taxes and Fees ($)
Miles Used
Miles Foregone

In general, the way to get a higher CPM on Southwest flights is to book cheaper awards where the avoided Passenger Facility Charge and Segment Fees represent a higher proportion of the ticket cost or to use the merger-exploiting trick previously mentioned.

But Southwest points are very close to being fixed in value, so I recommend using them for domestic flights when Southwest has the cheapest fare, and you don’t need to earn status miles on a legacy carrier. Or when you need to check two bags each way, since those fly free on Southwest.

Recap

Booking an award on Southwest is very easy since all Wanna Get Away fares can be purchased as awards at a price of 60 times the base fare plus excise taxes. Awards are made even easier by the fact that you can top up a deficient Rapid Rewards account with instant transfers from an Ultimate Rewards account.

Southwest points aren’t completely fixed in value. You get a little more value out of awards on cheap fares and awards that are capped at 19,200 points than you do out of $200 to $300 fares.

If you have the chance, help a friend or family member book an easy award. It’s easy for you, but not for them. You can make someone’s day, and hopefully convert them to the miles religion. If more of your friends have miles balances like yours, you can have more companions on your next trip!

 

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Posted in Anatomy of an Award, Chase, How to, Rapid Rewards

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Forum Buzz: Southwest 40% Off Sale

Posted on October 10, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Southwest Holding Huge Winter Fare Sale

The Southwest forum on FlyerTalk is buzzing about Southwest’s recently announced “Big Winter Sale.” Fares to most cities are a whopping 40% off which creates some incredible values in the Southwest route network. To take advantage of the sale, you must book by midnight on Thursday, October 11 and fly 11/28 – 12/12 or 1/7 – 2/14 excluding Sundays.

To book, simply go to the main Southwest home page and enter your city pairs. Before clicking Search, enter the promotional code BIGDEAL40 in the blank marked Promo Code.

Once you click through, you should see the discounts automatically applied on all the discount-eligible legs in the Wanna Get Away fare category. You should also see a message at the top of the booking page signifying that the web site has accepted the 40% off promotional code. If you don’t see the arrowed message below, you should start over to make sure the code was properly entered.

 

As always, there are some restrictions with this sale. The most important restrictions to note are that only roundtrip tickets are eligible and Sunday travel is excluded. My guess is the Sunday rule was added to dampen the amount of ultra-cheap weekend getaways that could be booked with the sale.

There are also city pair restrictions–any travel to/from Ft. Myers, as well as Austin-Orlando, Detroit-Phoenix, and Orlando-Phoenix–and blackout dates around both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Again, this is to prevent Southwest from losing money on flights that people would have booked anyway. They are clearly trying to drive new business with this quick winter fare sale.

Why is this a good deal?

Southwest already has a very solid domestic route network with low fares between many city pairs, plus they allow two free checked bags per passenger. When you take an additional 40% off these fares, good bargains turn into absolute steals. Weekday business travelers will certainly find some values, but leisure travelers will find incredible deals, especially on long weekends (Friday-Monday/Tuesday and Thursday-Monday/Tuesday).

For example, I was able to find ridiculously low weekend fares between Los Angeles and San Francisco using this discount code. I plugged in the code for Thursday, November 29 and returning on Monday, December 3rd (remember, no Sunday travel). Almost every leg had availability at $40. I was able to book LAX-SFO for a mere $79.20.

This short haul between Los Angeles and San Francisco was not the only good deal that was easy to find. I did a quick scan of some other city pairs and found prices that are hard to ignore. For instance, check out New York-La Guardia to Denver during prime ski season.

There are great transcontinental deals too. Look at this fare I was able to create between Baltimore and San Diego. These legs are nonstop as well! That’s one thing I love about Southwest. By eschewing the traditional hub model, they have some fantastic nonstop routes.

Not all the fares are the best deal, though, even with 40% off. Below is a Los Angeles-Las Vegas fare I pulled. It’s a reminder that you should check kayak.com and other airline sites to make sure you are getting the best deal.

On the same dates, American is beating the fare. (Spirit appears to beat the fare but charges $35 for a carry on each way or $30 for a checked bag each way.)

Low fares are great.  Are there any other reasons I should jump on this?

If you aren’t already a Southwest Rapid Rewards member, now is the time to join. Not only will these low fares still earn full credit, but for a limited time, you will earn 1,000 Rapid Rewards points for signing up for the program. Check out my recent Forum Buzz post for details.  It’s getting hard to ignore Southwest as a great domestic carrier.

Is this sale good on Business Select fares?

No. The sale only extends to the Wanna Get Away fare type. Southwest is different from most airlines in that they simply divide their fares into three different types: Business Select, Anytime, and Wanna Get Away.

Since Southwest operates all-economy planes, the fare classes don’t correspond to your seat, just to the flexibility of the fare and the amenities like free drinks and early boarding. I only ever book Wanna Get Away fares because they are the cheapest.

What are the blackout dates that you mentioned above that are ineligible for this sale?

These 40% fares are only for travel from November 28 to December 12, 2012 and January 7 to February 14, 2013.

There are also certain city-specific blackout dates. Discounts do not apply to New Orleans between January 17 and January 21, 2013 and January 31 through February 14, 2013.

Las Vegas is restricted on most 2013 weekends (1/10-1/14, 1/17-1/21, and 1/31-2/14).

For the inauguration (January 17 through January 23, 2013), the three Washington D.C. airports–Baltimore (BWI), Washington Reagan-National (DCA), and Washington Dulles (IAD)–are also blacked out.

Can my family of four take advantage of this deal under one reservation?

Yes! Reservations can include up to eight people, so family bookings can certainly be eligible for this promotion.

Do both my outbound and return have to fall within the window to get the 40% discount?

Per the terms on Southwest’s website, “if one direction of the trip is outside the valid dates, only the portion of travel falling within sale dates will be discounted.” That means you’ll get the discount oneway. Here is an example of LAX-DEN roundtrip 11/27 – 11/30, which shows only the return has the 40% discount because only the return falls into the discounted date range.

If I find a great cheap fare with this sale, can I just book it and make changes to the itinerary later to better suit my schedule?

No. Again, per the terms, “changes made to the itinerary after purchase will eliminate qualifications for this promotion.” But you can always cancel a Southwest fare for a credit on Southwest in the full amount of the canceled fare.

Do I earn points for the flights booked?

Yes. Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program is a revenue-based points program. Wanna Get Away fares earn 6 points per dollar, which can later be redeemed for flights at a rate of 60 points per dollar. Flights booked during the 40% off promo earn the normal 6 points per dollar on the 40%-off base fare.

Recap

Not all great deals are for international first class travel. Southwest’s amazing 40% off winter fare sale is an incredible deal for most city pairs that Southwest serves. Though there are blackout dates and city restrictions, there are plenty of chances to extract great value from this 40% off promotion.

Book by tomorrow (10/11) for travel 11/28 – 12/12 and 1/7 – 2/14 on any day except Sunday for substantial savings.

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