Author Topic: Help with Southwest LUV Vouchers and points  (Read 10862 times)

jeromedawg

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Help with Southwest LUV Vouchers and points
« on: December 10, 2015, 04:21:41 PM »
Hey guys

My wife and I (and child, but he's under 2 so free) are planning to fly to Seattle next year. Flights are $100 each way at the lowest, so we hope to pick one of those flights.

My wife and I each have a $100 LUV voucher, and in addition I have about 13k Rapid Rewards points and she has 10k Rapid Rewards points. Unfortunately, you can't combine LUV Vouchers and RR points so I'll have to think this through (and could use some help in doing so).

If I apply a $100 LUV voucher to one of the one-way $100 flights, it actually doesn't use the entire credit (I think they exclude air fees and taxes from the LUV vouchers, which is lame) so I have about $22-23 of LUV credit left over. Should I just look for a slightly more expensive flight ($112) to burn it up? Or should I just apply the remaining credit to the other (returning) flight and pay $80~ (and forego using my points)?

OR, should I spent 10k points and buy a $100 SWA gift card, and apply that to the remainder of my balance to cover the remaining $80 owed? I'd have to do this individually on my account and my wife's account. I've gotten used to employing the strategy of booking one-way flights in most cases, this seemingly one of them.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Agh nevermind about 10k points for the $100 SWA GC - that's only for RR Credit Card holders :(
« Last Edit: December 10, 2015, 06:21:51 PM by jplee3 »

mandy_2002

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Re: Help with Southwest LUV Vouchers and points
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2015, 06:09:12 PM »
It seems as if converting points to vouchers is a waste of points.  I purchased a ticket that I thought was $180 round trip for ~6,800 points.  If that's the case, I would lean towards using the voucher up and spending the $80 so that you can use the remainder of the points to purchase the remaining tickets (4 one ways if your child is more than 2).  Is there a reason you would want to get rid of all of your points?  If not, keep them for use on your next flights.

johnny847

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Re: Help with Southwest LUV Vouchers and points
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2015, 06:20:12 PM »
Hey guys

My wife and I (and child, but he's under 2 so free) are planning to fly to Seattle next year. Flights are $100 each way at the lowest, so we hope to pick one of those flights.

My wife and I each have a $100 LUV voucher, and in addition I have about 13k Rapid Rewards points and she has 10k Rapid Rewards points. Unfortunately, you can't combine LUV Vouchers and RR points so I'll have to think this through (and could use some help in doing so).

If I apply a $100 LUV voucher to one of the one-way $100 flights, it actually doesn't use the entire credit (I think they exclude air fees and taxes from the LUV vouchers, which is lame) so I have about $22-23 of LUV credit left over. Should I just look for a slightly more expensive flight ($112) to burn it up?

Assuming everything else is equal (the flight departs at an equally agreeable time for both flights, both have the same number of transfers, etc.) why would you purposely select a more expensive flight just to use up the voucher? This feels like a sunk cost fallacy to me. It doesn't matter if you use up the whole $100 voucher or not. What matters is how can you book your flights in the cheapest manner possible.

Or should I just apply the remaining credit to the other (returning) flight and pay $80~ (and forego using my points)?

Assuming you can redeem your Southwest points for a flight sometime in the forseeable future I'd probably use the rest of the voucher here and pay $80. Why? Because your voucher expires and Southwest points are pretty consistently worth 1.6 cents/point. Southwest flight prices in points are pretty well correlated with prices in dollars, which is unlike most other airlines.


OR, should I spent 10k points and buy a $100 SWA gift card, and apply that to the remainder of my balance to cover the remaining $80 owed? I'd have to do this individually on my account and my wife's account. I've gotten used to employing the strategy of booking one-way flights in most cases, this seemingly one of them.

Whatever you do, don't do that. Southwest points are pretty consistently worth 1.6 cents a point.

jeromedawg

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Re: Help with Southwest LUV Vouchers and points
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2015, 06:24:49 PM »
Thanks guys! Yea, looks like strictly using up the LUV vouchers (fully) and paying the rest as I normally would is the best case situation here.