Question about Southwest points offer

bgula

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 14, 2004
Messages
1,114
Southwest has an offer for buying points and I'm just wondering if it's a good deal to buy points from SW? The current offer seems to be about 35% off regular prices. I did some calculations and on cheaper flights I see that in order to get said flight with points, it works out to ~70 points/1$. Now, to buy points from SW at regular price, it works out to ~33 points/$1 and with the discount its ~51 points/$1. It's close to matching the price of buying a flight with points, but still short. My question is it worth it to buy points ahead of time for a future flight, or is it not worth it and better just to pay cash?
Looking at some other websites, they list a SW point as being worth 1.4 cents per point. If I use that, then with the discount to buy a point, it works out to 1.96 cents per point. It doesn't look like this sale is a deal - or am I wrong?
 
Short answer: No, it's not worth it.
Long answer: If you have a very specific need for a few more points or are daisy chaining purchases together for some reason, it can be worth it, but usually it's not, especially now. Prior to a couple weeks ago, SW points were pretty static at 1.4 cents per point redemption value along with some other benefits that would make it somewhat worthwhile. They've changed it to a variable value where some more desirable flights are as low as 1.1 cents per point and some of the least desirable flights are 1.6 cents per point. If you needed to top off for a redemption, it might be worth buying some, but certainly not enough of a deal to buy speculatively.
 
OK, thanks! That's sort of what I gleaned from some websites as well. Just wondered if my math was off or not.
 












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