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New To Credit Card rewards--pleas help

pinkcars88
Explorer C

Just a few quesiotns please.  Do you HAVE to book rental car, hotel etc. through the SW site to get points?  Is using your SW Plus card allowing you to get the same as going through the SW site?  Also, if you have to go through the site---can you also use your AARP credit also?  Thank you!

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Re: New To Credit Card rewards--pleas help

DancingDavidE
Aviator A
Solution

@pinkcars88 wrote:

Just a few quesiotns please.  Do you HAVE to book rental car, hotel etc. through the SW site to get points?  Is using your SW Plus card allowing you to get the same as going through the SW site?  Also, if you have to go through the site---can you also use your AARP credit also?  Thank you!


The credit card earns a point per dollar spent on total spending, and you get an extra point per dollar spent on Southwest, this applies to both flights and rental cars and hotels.

 

You also get Rapid Rewards points for spending on Southwest such as 6 points per dollar on WGA fares, 10 points per dollar on Anytime, and 12 points per dollar on Business Select - these apply whether or not you use the credit card.  Car rental and vacations may advertise bonus points to be earned as well depending on current offers.

 

So if you use your RR Chase credit card to buy a WGA flight for $100, you get 100 points for spending, 100 extra points for using your RR card to buy the flight, and 600 rapid reward points for the fare, total 800 points.

 

If you made the same purchase with a different credit card, you get only the 600 points for the fare.

 

A rental car would be similar, if you rented one for $100 - you get 100 points for total spending, 100 points bonus for using the credit card, and you get rapid rewards points as advertised in the offier - might be 100 to 500 points in some cases.

 

If you used a different card, you'd only get the advertised points from the offer and not the total spend or the credit card bonus.

 

Let us know if this answers your question. I guess the cliff notes version is no, you don't have to use your SW credit card, but if you do then you get 2 rapid reward points per dollar spent in addition to the regular rapid rewards that would be earned no matter how you paid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Re: New To Credit Card rewards--pleas help

pinkcars88
Explorer C

Can I use my AARP discount with booking thru SW? 

Re: New To Credit Card rewards--pleas help

dfwskier
Aviator A

@pinkcars88 wrote:

Can I use my AARP discount with booking thru SW? 


You are not going to like my answer: sometimes.

 

For hotel stays booked through Southwest, normally not. For hotel stays booked thru the hotels: normally yes. thru Orbitz or similiar you'd have to see if those sites offer an AARP rate. Hotel sites normally do. Remember that you'll need to give the hotels your RR#

 

For rent car companies, you'd have to input the AARP rate code into the SW (or any other site) web page. Doing so MAY prevent you from getting any bonus points referred to in my other post. That will depend on whether the bonus points are awarded as a result of the rate code or the coupon code. Note: normally the SW discount is about the same as the AARP discount.

Re: New To Credit Card rewards--pleas help

LindseyD
Retired Community Manager

Great answers, @DancingDavidE and @dfwskier. Thanks for being thorough!

 

Re: New To Credit Card rewards--pleas help

dfwskier
Aviator A
Solution

@pinkcars88 wrote:

Just a few quesiotns please.  Do you HAVE to book rental car, hotel etc. through the SW site to get points?  Is using your SW Plus card allowing you to get the same as going through the SW site?  Also, if you have to go through the site---can you also use your AARP credit also?  Thank you!


For rent cars, you will get some of the points by booking thru the car rental company (and providing your RR #), BUT NOT ANY BONUS POINTS UNLESS, you make note of the coupon codes, etc

that the Southwest site will give you to get "bomus points" for your rental. If you input those codes and your RR# on a rent car site, then you will get all points.

 For example,  you get 600 RR points by renting with Payless, but if you input the coupon codes you get from southwest and use the Payless site (or Southwest site) to rent your car, then you get 1200 points.

 

Likewise for hotel rentals you get the normal  Southwest points if you rent thru Southwest or the hotel site, as long as you give the hotel site your RR# (remember, not all hotels give RR points).

 

edit add: apparently Southwest provides RR points for almost all hotel stays booked through SW (1 point per $). Some hotel chains provide their own points, independent of Southwest's

points. To get those points you either have to book through Southwest or give the hotel your RR#

 

Not sure what you meant by "can you also use your AARP credit also.

 

You get RR points,per the terms of your credit card issuer, regardless of where you use your card. For example, you'd get RR points when you buy a ticket of Delta.