New Southwest vs. Old Southwest Rapid Rewards

In my previous post, Who Will Luv the New Southwest Rapid Rewards Program?, I went through the basics of the new program.  In this article, I will use more specific examples to paint an apples-to-apples comparison of the new program value vs. the old program value.

My conclusions were quite shocking.  The new program will be at least 60% more valuable to people that regularly book and redeem Anytime Fares.  If you book Anytime Fares and later redeem them for Wanna Get Away Fares, the new program can be over 250% more valuable.

However, for people that regularly book and redeem Wanna Get Away Fares, the program is now at least 20% less valuable.  If you book a lot of Wanna Get Away Fares to redeem later for anytime fares, the program value plummets over 60% in most cases.

(Click here to run your own numbers using our custom Southwest Rewards Calculator)

In order to make this a clear comparison, we will assume the following:

• All of the Round-Trips you take are identical in cost
• Wanna Get Away Fares are priced at approximately 35% the cost of an Anytime Fare.  (This is a pretty good rule of thumb)
• When you book your award, you book a trip that is identical in cost to the trips that you took to earn the award.
• 8 Round-Trip tickets under the old system will qualify you for any Wanna Get Away Fare, but will not qualify you for Anytime Fares
• 16 Round-Trip tickets under the old system will qualify you for Anytime Fares

Chart Assumes a $400 Round-Trip Anytime Fare and a $140 Round-Trip Wanna Get Away (WGA) Fare

	New RR Benefit	Old RR Benefit	Money Difference	New Program Value
Book 8 RT WGA Fares  Redeem 1 RT WGA Fare	$112	$140	- $28	- 20%
Book 16 RT WGA Fares  Redeem 1 RT Anytime Fare	$134	$400	- $266	- 66%
Book 16 RT Anytime Fares  Redeem 1 RT Anytime Fare	$640	$400	$240	+ 60%
Book 8 RT Anytime Fares  Redeem 1 RT WGA Fare	$533	$140	$393	+ 280%

Scenario #1:  Book and Redeem Wanna Get Away Fares - A 20% Drop in Value

Let’s say you book eight, $140 Wanna Get Away tickets, and later redeem them for another $140 Wanna Get Away ticket.

Under the old system you would have spent $1,120 in order to redeem a $140 Standard Reward.  Under the new system you’ll earn 6 points for every dollar you spend on Wanna Get Away fares, totaling 6,720 points.  When redeeming points for a Wanna Get Away fare you trade in 60 points for every $1, so 6,720 divided by 60 = only $112.  Therefore, in the new system you lose $28 in value, which is 20% off of the old programs $140 value.

This is the same no matter the numbers you use.  A $500 ticket would cost $4,000 after 8 roundtrips.  That $4,000 times 6 points = 24,000 points.  The 24,000 points divided by 60 = $400 in the new program.  This is 20% less than the $500 you would have gotten in the old Southwest program.

Scenario 2:  Book Wanna Get Away Fares and Redeem Anytime Fares - A 66% Drop in Value

Let’s say you book sixteen, $140 Wanna Get Away Fares to later redeem for a $400 Anytime fare.

Under the old system you would’ve spent $2,240 to redeem a $400 Freedom Award ticket.  Under the new system that $2,240 gets multiplied by 6 and turns into 13,440 points.  It requires 100 points to redeem $1 for Anytime Fares, which means you have $134.40 you can spend on Anytime fares.  That is $265.60 less purchasing power than you had in the old program, which is a 66% drop in value.    


Scenario #3:  Book and Redeem Anytime Fares - A 60% Increase in Value

Let’s say you book sixteen, $400 Anytime tickets to later redeem for another $400 Anytime ticket.
Under the old system you would have spent $6,400 in order to redeem a $400 Freedom Award.  Under the new system you’ll earn 10 points for every dollar you spend on Anytime fares, totaling 64,000 points.  You can then cash those in for an Anytime Fare at the rate of 100 points for $1 which gives you $640.  This is a 60% increase in value over the $400 ticket.

Scenario #4:  Book Anytime Awards and Redeem Wanna Get Away Fares -   A 280% Increase in Value 

Let’s say you book eight, $400 Anytime tickets to later redeem for a Wanna Get Away Fare that costs $140.

Under the old system you would’ve spent $3,200 for a Standard Reward worth $140.  Under the new system you’ll earn 32,000 points, which then divided by 60 gives you $533 that you can spend on Wanna Get Away Fares.  That’s almost 3 times the amount of buying power from the old program.

Remember, this assumes that the Wanna Get Away Fare is 35% of the Anytime Fare. If it was only 25%, you would be making 4 times more money, and even if it was half the cost of the Anytime ticket you would still be making over 150%.


For A- List Members (who receive a 25% point bonus) the Chart Looks Like This:

	New RR Benefit	Old RR Benefit	Money Difference	New Program Value
Book 8 RT WGA Fares  Redeem 1 RT WGA Fare	$140	$140	$0	0%
Book 16 RT WGA Fares  Redeem 1 RT Anytime Fare	$168	$400	- $232	- 58%
Book 16 RT Anytime Fares  Redeem 1 RT Anytime Fare	$800	$400	$400	+ 100%
Book 8 RT Anytime Fares  Redeem 1 RT WGA Fare	$667	$140	$527	+ 376%

For A-List Preferred Members (who receive a 100% point bonus) the Chart Looks Like This:

	New RR Benefit	Old RR Benefit	Money Difference	New Program Value
Book 8 RT WGA Fares  Redeem 1 RT WGA Fare	$224	$140	$84	+ 60%
Book 16 RT WGA Fares  Redeem 1 RT Anytime Fare	$269	$400	- $131	- 33%
Book 16 RT Anytime Fares  Redeem 1 RT Anytime Fare	$1,280	$400	$800	+ 220%
Book 8 RT Anytime Fares  Redeem 1 RT WGA Fare	$1,067	$140	$927	+ 662%

Conclusion 

After going through these examples, the results are pretty clear to me. The new Southwest Airlines does NOT want to reward you for purchasing Wanna Get Away Fares.  The days of buying 8 short round-trips in order to cash in for a free cross country flight are now gone.  The new program is designed to cater to business travelers that pay for the more expensive Anytime fares.  If you're one of those people, you should be thrilled with the increased awards and flexibility offered by the new Rapid Rewards Program.  However, if you only fly Southwest when you can buy a low-priced Wanna Get Away Fare, then you will receive less value from the new program.

For more information on how the new program works, you can visit my previous blog here.