Southwest Dynamic Award Pricing
Southwest Airlines revealed earlier this month lots of bad news for its loyal fans. Among the announced changes was an upcoming switch to “variable redemption rates across higher-demand and lower-demand flights”.
Southwest Rapid Rewards points have a somewhat fixed value of about 1.3 to 1.4 cents per points. Bu today with the schedule extension, Southwest has also launched those variable redemption rates. That means that the value of your points can be as low as 1 cent per point and as high as 1.8 cents per point.
Both of those valuations seem to be quite rare. So the bad news here is that the average value of Southwest points is likely somewhere between 1.1 and 1.2 cents per point. That’s about a 15% devaluation for Southwest Rapid Rewards points.
This comes just weeks after Southwest Airlines also cut earning rates on two of its most affordable fare classes. Now you only get 2X (down from 6X) points on Wanna Get Away fares, and 6X (down from 8X) on Wanna Get Away Plus fares.
Are you looking to book Southwest fares with points? Let us know in the comments what point valuations you are getting today?
[…] We are all disappointed by how Southwest lost its soul by relenting on the “Bags Fly Free” thingie. I was not surprised at all that they finally made the change to assigned seating. Anyway, the stock market has shown (so far) that it liked the move because it is salivating about all the extra revenue (and profits) bag fees will generate? Getting clearer now as every day goes by: Southwest provides updates re checked bags, dynamic pricing & more. And, you know, of course: Southwest Dynamic Award Pricing Brings More Bad News. […]
I don’t know if it was “dynamic pricing” or because of a sale and so they reduced the points required as well, but earlier this month I booked a one way flight on SW from LAS to JAX in September for 9,500 points. I just checked that same flight today and now it is 14,000 points. One way because now I fly Breeze from JAX to LAS nonstop for about the same price.
Don’t recall the sale price then but at today’s Wanna Get Away price of $180, that’s almost 1.9 cents value. I am using up my SW points because I expect to fly them a lot less now because of all the changes. I’ve been a RR member since 1997 and had been flying them almost exclusively until Breeze arrived.