Southwest Has Made Some Rapid Changes To Its Cheapest Fares

Rapid Rewards Flyer Program has seen some changes in its program because Southwest has adjusted the value of its points. Since 2011 Rapid Rewards, Southwest loyalty program has been a revenue-based program, which means a frequent flyer earns and redeems points based on the price of the airline ticket. Many have been wondering how these changes will affect members. Will they be able to redeem miles as easily as before, or will it be harder? Will they be able to sell Southwest Rapid Reward points or will the change of value influence that too?

1. Changes In Southwest Rapid Rewards Program

According to the View From The Wing, the program is busy making some tweaks to the program, the first being that it is lowering the number of airline miles per dollar needed for Business. Select prices by 35% and Anytime prices by 22%.

Travelers who are keen on flying either Business Select or Anytime don’t need as many miles to secure an award seat. This change will also encourage loyalty members to sell Southwest Reward points because there’ll be an increase in the demand.

Now for the bad news: Southwest has increased the number of airline miles required for cheap Wanna Get Away Fares by a total of 6%. Even though 6% sounds like a very small number, it is, in fact, a big blow for those who hoped to secure the cheapest seats. They’ll have to earn (or buy) more airline miles in order to secure the cheapest seat on the plane. More effort and planning will go into accumulating airline miles for the most affordable seats.

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2. Break Down Of The Changes

The value of Business Select used to be 120 points per dollar, and now it will cost around 78 points per dollar. On the other hand, the value of Anytime fares was 100 points per dollar and now the value will drop to 78 points per dollar. Lastly, Wanna Get Away had the lowest value of 72 to 74 points per dollar, and now that has been changed to 76 to 78 points per dollar.

Do you see a theme here? It looks like Southwest is standardizing award redemptions across all its different fare types. This makes sense given that the airline miles are earned and redeemed based on the dollar value of the ticket.
Basically Southwest was penalizing customers for redeeming their miles for its more premium fare classes, but now all points (airline miles) will have the same value across the board, no matter what ticket type you want to redeem.

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3. In Conclusion

According to the View From The Wing, most of Southwest redemptions are made for Wanna Get Away fares, so this could be perceived as a devaluation. However, those who want to redeem air miles for the premium cabins this is good news.

The difference between Wanna Get Away and Anytime fares is that Anytime fares are refundable. Business Select is also refundable and has the added benefits of priority boarding, access to the priority security lane ad a free drink. So what are you going to do? Sell Southwest Rapid Reward points or redeem them for a premium fare?