Sorry! Another Southwest Rapid Rewards Question! Please help!

[keri125]

Hello fellow DISers! I have a few questions regarding the Southwest Rapid Rewards program, and while I have done a search on the boards, there is an awful lot of information to sort through, and I can’t seem to put it together in my head, for whatever reason. I know there others who have done an amazing job of putting it all together, and I was wondering if you could assist me in making sense of the program.
I don’t even know where to begin – so I guess I’ll begin at the beginning! I am planning on taking my 9 year old son to Universal in November, and am focusing on trying to use the reward points from the Chase Southwest credit card to at least help in paying for our plane tickets. I live in North Idaho, and would be flying out of Spokane, so will need quite a few points to pay for two round-trip tickets.
I wouldn’t have even really bothered with getting the credit card, but my cousin is getting married in Zion in October, and I thought if I bought our tickets and rental car on the card, not only will I easily spend the $2000 needed to claim the 50,000 points, but will earn extra points from the flight and the car purchase.
I have been putting the majority of my bills/grocery shopping, etc. on the card and then trying to pay it off right away. That’s been a little more difficult than I planned, as there seems to be such a lag between the pending and active charges. I’ve been trying to pay it off once a week if possible.
I don’t have the best credit as I divorced about 5 years ago a man who ruined my credit in the ten years we were together. I have slowly but steadily been building it in the past five years, and am making progress, but it is slow going! Therefore I was approved for just a $2000 limit. That makes it a little more difficult to buy large purchases outright, like my Zion plane tickets, because I have to have it completely paid off before I can make large charges. I’m ready to buy my Zion tickets but am waiting for a payment to post before I have enough credit on my card to make the purchase.
Ok, so that’s the background! Here are my questions:
Once I use my Southwest card to buy the Zion tickets, do I automatically get those reward points credited to me through the card? Or do I need to have the Rapid Reward account #, set up through Southwest itself, and put the points in that account?
If I do have to do it through the Rapid Rewards account, do I need to buy my son and my ticket separately, with our two different Rapid Reward numbers? (I set up an account for him as well, just in case.)
Or, since I have the credit card, do I not need to worry about having a separate Rapid Rewards membership – everything I buy on the card will automatically be credited to me and then I can use those to buy two plane tickets for me and my son?
Plus, I read somewhere on the boards that it is best to get to the $2000 limit within two weeks of getting the card, but I thought we had three months to rack up the $2000? (And I do realize it is from the date the card was approved, not the date it arrives in the mail – which was a full seven days for me, so I already lost a week there.) Am I missing something? I was approved Feb 20th, so am assuming I have until about May 20th to spend the $2000, although I should reach it this week.
If I don't earn enough money to pay for two tickets fully, can you use what points you have and get a discounted price on tickets? Or is it an all-or-nothing affair?
I am trying to wade through all the information at night after my son is asleep, but after working all day, I’m usually too exhausted to make sense of it, and then I just start confusing myself! I was wondering if someone would be nice enough to simply lay it all out for me, step-by-step. I am a total newbie at (responsible!) credit card ownership AND planning a trip. I’ve never planned a trip by myself before, and am excited and scared!
Thank you so much in advance. If I haven’t explained myself properly, please don’t hesitate to ask me to explain further. I went to a family reunion in 2010 at WDW, and although I didn’t have to plan the logistics, the boards were invaluable to me in getting information regarding the parks themselves. I got hooked and continued to read the boards (and listen to the podcast) on a weekly basis. Now that I’m back in planning mode, I’m so grateful I have somewhere to go to ask these questions!
Thank you!

 

[lauti]

1. If you didn't have a SWA RR# or account prior to opening an account, one was opened for you. So, check your statements and/or online info and and use that number to create your own RR account on the SWA website. You will book all travel via SW and not Chase. They post your points and those get automatically put into your SWA account.

2. People are trying to spend the $2k quickly because it can take a bit to actually get the points credited to the SW account and they are looking to book their tickets soon. So, yes, you have 3 months but it depends on what kind of time crunch you are under for your disney trip.

3. You have to have at least enough points to cover the total point cost of a ticket. So, it could be that you have enough to cover yours but then have to pay for your son's. But, with 50k points you should have enough or close to enough points to do the roundtrip tickets.

4. You can book both of your tickets via your RR account.

 

[Fire14]

also a tip for any one. You can buy points to get enough points to buy airfare with points. My Dh and I both have been in situation where we are short 500 or so points and it's cheaper to buy points than pay for Airfare outright.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Also if you don't mind playing the watching & waiting game, you can wait until you accrue more points before booking. Or if you only have enough to book one way, do that then wait to book the opposite way.

Also once you book, don't give up. If your flight drops in price, or another that would work for you, go under "change reservation" and even if you choose the same flight again, you will get the lower point price and get a credit to your RR account.
Sunday returns are usually high priced & keep going up so if you need that, I would book that asap.

For our summer vacay in August (to Zion & Bryce coincidentally) I booked the flight out west since I had enough points for all 4 of us and there was only one flight in that direction that would work well for us. I haven't booked the return yet. I'm hoping the price drops on either one and in the meantime I'll accrue more points so maybe I'll only have to pay cash for 2-3 seats coming home.

Usually my payments are credited by 10:30-11:00 pm EST on the day I schedule it for online. Then it comes out of my checking account the next day. It's not really a long lag. I don't know why sometimes new charges get stuck in pending status for a while. It can be annoying.

If you're not flying during peak travel times like Easter/Christmas/NY/TG you don't have to book the first day of release. Also the more flexibility you have with flight times, the better your price options.

It used to be you could only schedule 1 payment to Chase every 3 days. Now it allows 1 payment per day which is nice. I check my account online every day so it doesn't ever get out of hand but I do charge everything on it except our mortgage & dh's truck payment. We earn around $3000 points per month. Charges on your card to buy SWA products earn double points so if your flight to Zion costs $300 RT, you'll earn 600 pts plus the points earned by actually flying.

Also if I ever have to book with a combination of points and cash, I buy my own ticket with cash (cc) and book the kids or dh with points. They don't earn a lot anyway and my RR acct is the one linked to our SWA visa so it's easier if most of the points are in one acct instead of 3-4K scattered among 3 family members.

 

[keri125]

Oh my gosh, these are exactly the answers I was looking for! I knew I could count on you guys! Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I would contact SWA right away and find out your RR account number. IIRC when I opened my SW visa, it asked me what my RR account number was and provided a link to join if not yet a member.
Honestly that would make me nervous to be charging all that stuff and not knowing for certain where those points are going. Not that I think they're lost, I just don't like uncertainty.

It's a fun game to play once you learn how. The key is to only spend what you know you can pay. If you end up in debt & paying interest, you might as well just buy your tickets outright and stay out of trouble.

Also every anniversary when your card renews and you get bill the annual fee, you get a chunk of bonus points. For me that's in April which is great timing for planning summer vacations. The bonus varies whether your card is the $69 AF or the higher one, $99??? I forget what the current deal is; it was $59 when I signed up so I'm locked into that. I easily get my money's worth though. All 4 of us flew free to WDW last Sept. I can't remember when I had to buy tickets for all 4 of us.

 

[swilshire]

My husband also got a card approved with a low limit. My plan was to pay multiple times a month. I found that my it took payments several days to post from the time I ask my credit union's auto bill pay to pay them. Maybe it is unique to my organization. If you have the cash on hand, you can always pay in advance to allow "room" on the card for big purchases.

I am waiting now for my husband's bonus to post so I can order some tickets. The statement date was a few days ago. Not sure why it is taking so long for the points to go to his account.

Sheila

 

[GusGus77]

Two questions here as I was looking at the Southwest points thing and maybe getting a credit card (even though it is only 25,000 points right now.) We are looking to fly in September for our family of 4. We would probably only be booking one way. (We have a credit on another airline that we would use to fly home.) How long after spending the required $2K (which we can do in a month) will we be credited our points to use? How much will buying additional points cost? It looks like to book all 4 of our tickets together we would be short 11,000 points. Thanks for any info!

 

[My3kiddos]

Two questions here as I was looking at the Southwest points thing and maybe getting a credit card (even though it is only 25,000 points right now.) We are looking to fly in September for our family of 4. We would probably only be booking one way. (We have a credit on another airline that we would use to fly home.) How long after spending the required $2K (which we can do in a month) will we be credited our points to use? How much will buying additional points cost? It looks like to book all 4 of our tickets together we would be short 11,000 points. Thanks for any info!

I have both cards and once I reached the $2000 mark the bonus points were posted to my RR acct 2 days after the statement date. Right now to buy points it $.0275 per point so 11,000 would be $302.50

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

My husband also got a card approved with a low limit. My plan was to pay multiple times a month. I found that my it took payments several days to post from the time I ask my credit union's auto bill pay to pay them. Maybe it is unique to my organization. If you have the cash on hand, you can always pay in advance to allow "room" on the card for big purchases.

I am waiting now for my husband's bonus to post so I can order some tickets. The statement date was a few days ago. Not sure why it is taking so long for the points to go to his account.

Sheila

If you schedule payments thru chase.com, they post that day you schedule it for. For same day payments, if you put in the request by 8pm eastern time, it's credited that day by midnight. Perhaps it's your bill pay service that is slow.

 

[djmeredith]

To the OP:

Another money/point saving tip on SW is to plan your travel on Tuesdays or Wednesdays if at all possible. Those are the days of the week most likely to end up with discounts at some point before you travel (and you can get the miles credited if they drop after you book). Learn from my mistake on this because I could've saved around 35,000 or more points one way (on 7 one way tickets) if I had planned our travel days on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Unfortunately, I was already locked into our condo for dates Thursday through the following Friday when I discovered the price difference for Tuesdays/Wednesdays.

Two questions here as I was looking at the Southwest points thing and maybe getting a credit card (even though it is only 25,000 points right now.) We are looking to fly in September for our family of 4. We would probably only be booking one way. (We have a credit on another airline that we would use to fly home.) How long after spending the required $2K (which we can do in a month) will we be credited our points to use? How much will buying additional points cost? It looks like to book all 4 of our tickets together we would be short 11,000 points. Thanks for any info!

If you're not traveling until September, you may want to hold out for a few months before applying for the card. The 50,000 points offer seems to come around every few months.

I have both cards and once I reached the $2000 mark the bonus points were posted to my RR acct 2 days after the statement date. Right now to buy points it $.0275 per point so 11,000 would be $302.50

This was my mother's experience this month as well. She spent the $2,000 within the first couple of weeks of getting the card and the bonus points were posted within 2 days after her first closing date. People on other threads have reported a delay in getting their bonus points, and a pattern seemed to emerge. That pattern suggests that the later in your billing cycle you reach the $2,000 limit, the more likely it will be that they will not post until after the next billing cycle (a 4-6 week delay after you reach the required spending). That is why I made sure my mother met her limit right away because we needed those points to book tickets before the end of this month when the value of the points changes. Unfortunately, I didn't meet the limit on my card so I have to wait to purchase our last two return tickets.