Any South West Rewards Experts Here?

[PSUGuy]

I have 6,861 points from previous trips, my wife has a little less. I'll be getting the CC which gets us 40,000 more. I've been told that on reservation day I can pay for both of us out of my allotment of what will be 46,861 points but my question is, what happens to her balance? How do we use up her points on flights? Options?

Thanks,
Bill From PA

 

[shoreward]

I have 6,861 points from previous trips, my wife has a little less. I'll be getting the CC which gets us 40,000 more. I've been told that on reservation day I can pay for both of us out of my allotment of what will be 46,861 points but my question is, what happens to her balance? How do we use up her points on flights? Options?

Thanks,
Bill From PA

Start to build up her account, by using the Southwest shopping portal, when making online purchases, so that she has enough RR points for at least a one-way booking.
https://rapidrewardsshopping.southw...=NA&med=link&strm=na&cam=&cont=HPNavBar&end=1

If you rent cars, try renting through the Southwest site, where you can earn up to 2,400 points for a 7+ day rental.
https://www.southwest.com/html/specialoffers/car-offers.html?clk=GSUBNAV-OFFERS-CARS

You also can earn up to 10,000 points per night for hotel stays, booked through the site.
https://www.southwest.com/html/specialoffers/hotel-offers.html

 

[barb969]

You can save her points for later use or transfer them to your account with a fee.

When you want more points she can get a visa in her name with 40,000 points(if still available) to add to her present points.

 

[georgina]

I have 6,861 points from previous trips, my wife has a little less. I'll be getting the CC which gets us 40,000 more. I've been told that on reservation day I can pay for both of us out of my allotment of what will be 46,861 points but my question is, what happens to her balance? How do we use up her points on flights? Options?

Thanks,
Bill From PA

Do you need the card soon? There have been reports of people while in the air getting a SW credit card offer with 50,000 bonus (using the SW in flight website). I have gotten SW flights as low as 5000 points on occasion, so your wife could eventually use them on a cheap flight.

 

[PSUGuy]

Do you need the card soon? There have been reports of people while in the air getting a SW credit card offer with 50,000 bonus (using the SW in flight website). I have gotten SW flights as low as 5000 points on occasion, so your wife could eventually use them on a cheap flight.

We're definitely waiting, we did hear of the occasional 50,000 point deal and recently SW sent us an offer, 40,000 points and a $100 credit. We'll go for the card shortly before the window opens for early Nov 2019. It looks like, worst case, the 2 of us will get down and back with about 10,000 of my points left over, counting the nearly 7,000 I already have.

Bill From PA

 

[Huff]

You can transfer points from her account to someone else's if it is more likely that person will use them.

 

[supersnoop]

You can transfer points from her account to someone else's if it is more likely that person will use them.

You have to pay to transfer. For more than a few stranded points, it’s not worth the cost. You can book a ticket for anyone, and some flights cost very few points.

 

[nkereina]

Just wanted to mention that for at least the offers I've been mailed, the 40,000 point bonus is posted after you meet a minimum spend threshold - I think it was a $3000 over the first three months. Its been a while since I've read the details, but just wanted to point that out. I'll also mention that if your wife is short a small number of points to make a booking, you can also purchase points. I have done this in the past - I don't remember how much I was short, but I paid about $75 for X amount of points and that gave me enough for the round trip tickets, with some left in my account. The $75 was still much less than the normal fares.

 

[PSUGuy]

Just wanted to mention that for at least the offers I've been mailed, the 40,000 point bonus is posted after you meet a minimum spend threshold - I think it was a $3000 over the first three months. Its been a while since I've read the details, but just wanted to point that out. I'll also mention that if your wife is short a small number of points to make a booking, you can also purchase points. I have done this in the past - I don't remember how much I was short, but I paid about $75 for X amount of points and that gave me enough for the round trip tickets, with some left in my account. The $75 was still much less than the normal fares.

Thanks! Time to read the fine print.
Edit: Looks like I must spend $1000 over the first 3 months. Unfortunately that will be easy.
Bill From PA

 

[palhockeymomof2]

We're definitely waiting, we did hear of the occasional 50,000 point deal and recently SW sent us an offer, 40,000 points and a $100 credit. We'll go for the card shortly before the window opens for early Nov 2019. It looks like, worst case, the 2 of us will get down and back with about 10,000 of my points left over, counting the nearly 7,000 I already have.

Bill From PA

We fly a lot to Orlando from Long Island to visit our son wholives there and of course The mouse...on every flight the 50,000 RR offer is there...may be different personal cards offering it...if you apply on the flight....if you’d like to get the companion pass...apply for the business SW card at least 30 days after your personal application...this offers 60,000RR points .do the spend on both cards in 2019...and you’ll have a companion pass for 2019 and 2020

 

[_19disnA]

With any credit card it is good to check how you earn points. That initial 'free ticket' offer may sound appealing, but if you are never able to build up enough points after that, the benefit is far less. If you have several of these cards with different airlines, you typically will end up not having enough points to be worth anything after the initial promotion is used. Having a few thousands points with many airlines isn't of much value.

 

[PSUGuy]

With any credit card it is good to check how you earn points. That initial 'free ticket' offer may sound appealing, but if you are never able to build up enough points after that, the benefit is far less. If you have several of these cards with different airlines, you typically will end up not having enough points to be worth anything after the initial promotion is used. Having a few thousands points with many airlines isn't of much value.

We're considering that. We THINK if we use it as our primary card we'll come out OK. At the very least for $69 we'll get a RT flight for both of us on our 2019 Food&Wine vacation with more than 10,000 points left over and that's without counting the routine purchases we'll be making. We'll just cancel if it's not worth it to us.

Bill From PA

 

[PSUGuy]

We fly a lot to Orlando from Long Island to visit our son wholives there and of course The mouse...on every flight the 50,000 RR offer is there...may be different personal cards offering it...if you apply on the flight....if you’d like to get the companion pass...apply for the business SW card at least 30 days after your personal application...this offers 60,000RR points .do the spend on both cards in 2019...and you’ll have a companion pass for 2019 and 2020

So if I'm understanding this correctly, those SW employees hawking the card in the terminal that I blow off every trip are offering 50,000 points for $69? Or is this the 50,000 point card with a higher yearly fee? At any rate I'll at least ask next week, probably on our way home, gotta get to Soarin' before 11:10!

Bill From PA

 

[supersnoop]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, those SW employees hawking the card in the terminal that I blow off every trip are offering 50,000 points for $69? Or is this the 50,000 point card with a higher yearly fee? At any rate I'll at least ask next week, probably on our way home, gotta get to Soarin' before 11:10!

Bill From PA

They’re probably pitching the Premier card at $99/year. I’m sure there’s a minimum spend requirement, too.

 

[tex1989]

The offers are varying from time to time. When I got mine it was 50k miles for the $99 version. My son got his with 60K points. I have seen lately the 40K offer. I pay $99 a year, with no minimum use and not long ago got an e-mail offer to upgrade for $50 to the $149 a year card. That level gets you 4 free front of line upgrades (to the business class A-1 through A-15) as available. It also gets you a $75 travel credit a year good for use on any travel. You get more miles every anniversery (+5,000) and you get double points for a few more things. Our problem is we go to WDW so much I never can accumulate enough miles cause I use them all the time. We are going first week of December and I did not have nearly enough points for the two of us. But for whatever reason as I am looking at the flights going and coming back I notice the return flights are really cheap while the flights going are a lot more. So I bought one way return tickets for points, and paid cash for the outgoing flight. After doing that and applying the upgrade credits we are out of pocket $292.16 total or $146.08 each round trip.