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Companion Pass question

RobinHenders
Explorer C

Hello all! I currently have 97,000 companion pass points. I know that they expire on Jan 1, so that's my deadline to get to 110,000. I am staying at a hotel on December 9 that was booked on southwest.com, this booking will net me 20,000 RR points. 

In reading the website, I found that it can take up to 8 weeks to post the points earned at hotels. I spoke to a representative just now that didn't sound 100% confident, but she told me that once those points posted, they would be applied to my 2018 total, which would get me the companion pass. Can anyone out there confirm that for me???

 

Thank you!

11 REPLIES 11

Re: Companion Pass question

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

The points earned from hotels booked through southwest.com are Companion Pass qualifying points. The question is when they will post...my guess is that you should be ok with 3 weeks remaining in the month, BUT there is no guarantee as you saw in the fine print it could take up to 8 weeks. Good luck! 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Companion Pass question

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@RobinHenders wrote:

...I found that it can take up to 8 weeks to post the points earned at hotels. I spoke to a representative just now that didn't sound 100% confident, but she told me that once those points posted, they would be applied to my 2018 total, which would get me the companion pass. Can anyone out there confirm that for me???


This part I'm not confident about - the CP policy seems clear that qualification is based on number of flights during a calendar year - this wording sounds great that even for posting a flight January 1st would still retroactively apply.

 

However the terms also say that qualification may be by points earned during a calendar year, but for other threads on this community the points for most other activity (or even for flights?) apply when they post, so I'm also not confident that this would apply retroactively.

 

But it also may be a moot point, although eight weeks are allowed, I understand them to post much more quickly in many cases, especially if this is a business or resort type hotel that handles similar points transactions regularly...any of the big chains are probably processing things quickly.  (I might be more worried if it was a botique hotel...I don't have any data on that, but just my feeling that any of the big hotel organizations are likely to process things quickly.)

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Companion Pass question

RobinHenders
Explorer C

Thank you for the response! I'm trying to get ahold of another representative to verify, I'm not confident that they will back-date the points if they don't post until 2019. It is a bigger chain so I'm hoping that they post quicker. 

Again, thanks for the response!

Re: Companion Pass question

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

You're welcome to try to get more answers, but history says that you won't and if you do it's just "he said" when you try to deal with it later. Odds are everything will work out just fine, but I don't think you can do anything else now to ensure it works out.

 

Please post a reply and let us know how it goes after you complete the stay. 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Companion Pass question

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@RobinHenders wrote:

Thank you for the response! I'm trying to get ahold of another representative to verify, I'm not confident that they will back-date the points if they don't post until 2019. It is a bigger chain so I'm hoping that they post quicker. 

Again, thanks for the response!


I was looking at this more closely - 20,000 points is a huge haul from a hotel stay. Was that the base rate for points, or did that include bonus points?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Companion Pass question

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

Sorry, one more follow up - I just had some hotel points hit my account yesterday that were from 10/17. This was for a Homewood Suites, only 760 points but this one was one month later.

 

I still don't have any way to know if this would have counted retro-actively to 10/17 instead of the 11/17 date though.

 

In a nutshell, if you have any more flights left this year, you might want to consider upgrading to a bsuiness select flight if possible - although it would cost some extra, weigh that against the value of the companion pass to you. If you'd be using it at least monthly and assume RT value for the companion $300 or so on average, the "value" will be $3,600...it woudld be worth a few hundred bucks out of pocket to ensure that you get it.

 

On the other hand, if it does slide to next year, you'll be off to a 20,000 point head start.

 

I don't think anyone at Southwest will be able to answer definitively though, as was mentioned earlier, the posting I believe depends upon action from the hotel - maybe call the hotel and ask.

 

 

 

  

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Companion Pass question

RobinHenders
Explorer C

FYI here was SW response, which I'm still a bit confused about:

 

"Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We appreciate the opportunity to respond.

As you know, to earn a Companion Pass, a Member must fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 110,000 Qualifying Points in one calendar year. Southwest Airlines defines a qualifying one-way flight as revenue travel from an origin city to a destination city, regardless of any intermediate stops and/or connections. Companion Pass Qualifying Points are earned from revenue flights booked through Southwest Airlines, points earned on Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Cards, and base points earned from Rapid Rewards Partners.

All that said, please know to earn Companion Qualifying Points from a hotel stay, the stay must be completed on or before December 31, 2018. Once the stay has been completed please allow 8-12 weeks for the points to post to your account to count towards your companion status for 2019.

Of course, if you have any further questions, you are welcome to call us directly at 1 (855)-234-4654 (Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Central Standard Time (CST)). We appreciate your patronage, and we hope to welcome you onboard soon."

 

Does this mean that the points from the hotel stay will count towards my current 110,000 total, or that they will post in 2019? So confusing

Re: Companion Pass question

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

Lol, (not laughing at you, but rather how predictable the response was)... I refer you back to my previous posting about not getting a real answer. I still think you'll be ok, but all anyone here can give you is an opinion and the only way to actually know what will happen is to do it. Do you have a better option that would guarantee you get the points (aka booking flights)? 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Companion Pass question

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@RobinHenders wrote:

FYI here was SW response, which I'm still a bit confused about:

 

 

All that said, please know to earn Companion Qualifying Points from a hotel stay, the stay must be completed on or before December 31, 2018. Once the stay has been completed please allow 8-12 weeks for the points to post to your account to count towards your companion status for 2019.

Of course, if you have any further questions, you are welcome to call us directly at 1 (855)-234-4654 (Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Central Standard Time (CST)). We appreciate your patronage, and we hope to welcome you onboard soon."

 

Does this mean that the points from the hotel stay will count towards my current 110,000 total, or that they will post in 2019? So confusing


i read the bold/underlined part to say that they don't expect the points to post to 2018. (Although they could if things post quickly, which they may - but this response doesn't imply that would happen.)

 

My thought would be the keep the booking as-is, there is still a chance for things to post quickly enough. Then if they don't and your travel habits will be similar next year, the 20,000 point head-start will be helpful to earn CP in 2019 for 2019 and 2020.

 

But if you had some unusually high volume of flights this year, so it's 2018 or bust I would consider booking a BS flight towards the end of the year for a points run...if the points post from the hotel and/or the flight to Mexico, you can refund it, if not that's the best way to guarantee hitting any particular target by flying.

 

That's another angle - how many points are you expecting for the flight? If it isn't already a BS flight, pay the upgrade to get 12x points instead of 6x if that will be enough to put you over?

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.