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Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

Snappy
Explorer A

Reposting as a new subject:

I had approx 85000 points begiining of december and I made charges on 12/29/2016 pustting me past 110,000 but Chase Visa says they will only report on 1/1/2017. I think this is so unfair to casual SW travelers who are not into all the the 'inside baseball' fine print and simply goes by the the point clock on the My ACCOUNT page which said it will reset on 12/31/16. But, if you consider Chase Visa and all the arbitrary rules about posting, it actually reset on 12/1/2016 for me. I think this is unfair.

When you have one program running by calendar year fed info by another system running on monthly cycles, it would have been a simple matter for Southwest to demand from Chase Visa to report points by calendar months earned.

 

They do make exception in the case of points reported from SW Partners. Here, they ignore posting dates and go by when the Partner says the points were earned. That is, the Partners are providing EARNED MONTH information to Rapid Rewards! The same rule should be applied to RR Visa. Basically, all the systems should oprate on the the same calendar or you end up with arbitrary rules about posting dates hidden in the fine print of T&C while the beautiful dashboard serves to mislead!

 

I hope I can contact someone in charge of the RR Companion pass program and appeal for managerial discretion to compensate for the deficiency of their IT systems? I think mine is a clear case for such discretion to not deprive me of a companion pass in 2017! Does anyone have contact info for the RR Czar who can overrule! Thanks.

16 REPLIES 16

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

franktravel
Aviator B

Hi 

 

Rapid Reward program terms and conditions:

 

"Points earned during a billing cycle on a Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Card from Chase are not available for redemption or qualification for Companion Pass status until they are posted on your billing statement and posted to your Rapid Rewards Account.  Only points posted on your billing statements and posted to your Rapid Rewards Account during the same calendar year are available for qualification for Companion Pass status". 

 

Good Luck!

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

Snappy
Explorer A

Yes, I found the fine print too, rather belatedly. But, do you not see arbitrary nature of this rule and how the dashboard could be misleading.

I have also pointed out in a reply that you have really no control over the posting date!

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

joemcr
Explorer C

Snappy, the following is posted in another thread (by someone else), but seems to explain that "posting" date and "earned" date are different, and therefore you can earn points in December even though your statement comes out in Jan.:

 

Dear Justin,

Thank you for contacting us about qualifying for a Rapid Rewards Companion Pass. As you already know, to earn a Companion Pass, a Member must fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 110,000 Qualifying Points within one calendar year. Qualifying Points earned from one of our Partners count toward Companion Pass qualification for the year in which they are posted to the account. However, if the points were earned in 2016, then they will count towards 2017 requalification, regardless of when the points are posted to the account.

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

Snappy
Explorer A

I saw that posting from Justin too. But it talks about 'PARTNERS' and the special exception from being subject to arbitrary posting dates. I wish it had addressed the posting from RR Visa too.

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

Snappy
Explorer A

Adding some more pertinent arguments here:

 

Chase Visa allows you to choose your PAYMENT DUE DATE but not the POSTING date which could be arbitrary and known only to them. For example, going by the Rapid Rewards Activity for 2016, I see that they have posted my points on the 1st or 2nd or even 3rd of a month. In April and October 2016, the posting date was the 3rd and in July it was the 7th!!! Totally arbitrary based on holidays and whatever else, apparently! This cries out for a proper IT solution to remove the arbitrary nature of the Companion pass program and make it FAIR and TRANSPARENT!

 

 

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

PDFelter
Frequent Flyer B

Basing this question on the information you provided of when your Chase points post to your RR account...

 

Did you receive points in the early part of January, 2016 that were from December, 2015? Assuming based on when your points post from the Chase account, this is true.  So, in your discussion, these points shouldn't count towards 2016 Companion Pass qualification if you are asking them to accept your December, 2016 points accrued and posted in 2017. So, knowing this, did you really earn enough to qualifiy for the companion pass? 

 

As much as I hate to see someone miss out on this perk, you have to be fair on both sides of the calendar with the data.  

 

Wishing you all the best!

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

Snappy
Explorer A

Yes. More than enough. I am not asking for 13 month worth of points. I am just asking SW treat RR VIsa points just as they do other RR points. You earn it when you earn it and not based on an arbitrary posting date over which you really have no control.

My 1/1/2017 statement just posted to SW RR on 1/7/2017. I couldn't change the 1/1/2017 to 12/31/2016 without resorting to trial and error by adjusting the due date. I could have adjusted the due date to one day earlier and RR Visa might have still posted on 1/12017 or 1/2/2017 or even 1/5/2017 and it might post to SW RR later than that!

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

micahbgibbs
Explorer C

Just found this thread I am completly frustrated we are in the same boat, our statement date on our credit card is 12/4 so we basically needed 110K by 12/4, or we should have used more options like Rocketmiles as we were only 2k short on 12/4, but I was told last year we have until 12/31 and we had flights coming up that I knew would put us over.  Of course we did not get companion pass because our statement ended on 12/4.  I was told to call that # you listed option 5, but it looks like NOT a chance they will review the account and reverse the decision.  This is very sad because like you we did not pick a statement closing date and did not have control.  I know next year of course if you are short you can still get the points thru services like rocket miles, but this means I only have 11 months to obtain my points.  I feel like just cancelling my card as this is rediculous customer service.  

Re: Manager Contact for Rapid Rewards Companion Pass program needed to appeal for discretion

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

You have 12 months - if you had the card all year then the points from december spending in 2016 that  posted in January 2017 are included towards your 2017 CP qualification. Counting the points from December 2017 would be giving you 13 months.

 

Southwest doesn't want to get daily updates from Chase on every card holder purchase. There is also the issue of returns soon after purchase to game the system. I don't think this is an IT problem - they most likely don't want to do that.

 

An earlier poster didn't think the points were equal quality - why would they be? Southwest directly controls the points from flights, which is their core business - these are obviously favorable and reward the more frequent Southwest customers. Points from travel-related partners are also good, tie directly to Southwest's core business, and are relatively infrequent transfers of information (one hotel and one rental car per trip for instance. They can also be booked directly from Southwest's own website.

 

 

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