Southwest Airlines: "Introducing Cash + Points" (for combined payment)

It was announced a while back that Southwest Airlines is going to allow a combination of cash and Rapid Rewards points as payment for some (maybe all?) flights. It looks like they are finally implementing this as an option for booking flights, but it's not fully implemented yet. The idea is, if you are short some points you can make it up with cash (hopefully just a small additional outlay) or the reverse, being if you want a discount you can pay with whatever points you have accumulated as a way of bringing the cash outlay down. I think it's a great idea.

The below link provides some information.

It appears that right now it's only available via the Southwest App (which I don't have on my phone). I tried this on the website itself and it's not available. Or at least it's not available for my home airport route to LAS.

So, some questions:

1) Has anyone done this (so far) and has had success? Reviews?
2) Is it fair in the true value of the points you have reedemed?
3) Is it available for all classes of ticket, including the cheap "Wanna Getaway" fares?
4) Is the cash component strictly a credit card-- or can you use Southwest gift cards and/or flight credits as a cash equivalent? I ask this only because you CANNOT buy additional RR points with these methods, as it's credit card only. This is important because lots of people either get gift cards or else have flight credits from re-booking flights.

Hopfeully this information will be useful for someone, and maybe with discussion I can get my questions answered. Thanks.

Cash + Points | Rapid Rewards | Southwest Airlines

 

Their FAQ appear to cover #2 and #4, although it's possible they use a different method of calculating the value of a point for these bookings vs all-points booking. They kind of have a circular definition (ie. "Q: What is the redemption value?" "A: Depends on the redemption rate." Well duh.) But it may mean that for a given flight, they value the points the same way for either method.





Fare class isn't mentioned anywhere, but the video appears to show the booking of a Wanna Get Away fare, because there is a prompt to upgrade to Wanna Get Away Plus.

 

I just booked a flight using points. I was 5000 points short and it cost me $72. I thought it was fair.

 

I believe SWA recently had a fare sale for booking with POINTS but not for cash price

For that reason I would probably not use the points + cash mixed payment option
And save the points for when there is a points booking sale

 

They did.

 

Thanks for everyone's responses. I decided to go ahead and download the Southwest app on my phone and the CASH + POINTS option was available for my desired flight (it still is not available on southwest.com on a regular PC browser for the same flight!). I was able to book a flight using it. I ended up using 6,400 points to discount my flight by $40.00, so for those curious this ended up being a $0.00625 redemption per point use. (Yep, a point is now a fraction of a penny, at least in this scenario.)

I was able to also provide a gift card balance to further reduce it. I had a SECOND gift card, too, with a very small balance but couldn't use that for the reason that it was too small of a balance and the third payment option must complete the balance due. In so many words, only 3 payment options are available, and the points-for-cash counts as one here.

Hope this information helps someone.

 

Interesting.

WOW, that seems like a horrible redemption rate.

Just curious - if you look at the same flight when you're not logged in, what is the redemption rate?

 

OK, not logged in, strictly using points for that same flight (good experiment):

Flight cost is $148 cash *OR* 10,260 points (plus $5.60 for the gov't fees)

$148 / 10,260 = $0.01442 per point

So, that's close to penny and a half per point.

You are right, my true scenario with points for cash was a horrible redemption rate-- at about half the "regular" redemption rate.

 

Maximum 3 forms of payment for a fare
What you can do is book a fare using the 2 separate gift/voucher balances, cancel it for credit and it will be combined into one credit

 

Fun fact: When you pay via cash and points, you don't get any points.

"No, Cash + Points bookings will not earn Rapid Rewards points, tier qualifying points for A-List or A-List Preferred status, or Companion Pass qualifying points."

But..

"flights paid for with Cash + Points will count toward your qualifying one-way flights for A-List, A-List Preferred, or Companion Pass status when flown."