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Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

LindseyD
Retired Community Manager
Solution

Hi @Gladesgirl and @jakez,

 

We always want to err on the side of our Customers, but even our Customer Relations Department has to work within the boundaries of the Rapid Rewards Program. Rapid Rewards is a loyalty program designed to thank our Frequent Flyers for their loyalty. As long as there is earning activity in the account within a 24-month period, Rapid Rewards Points don’t expire, and we send out a notice prior to inactivating a Member’s account that states what qualifies as earning activity. There are many ways outside of taking a flight to earn and maintain Rapid Rewards Points, which you can learn more about here

 

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

jakez
Explorer A

Thats not true at all Lindsey, I flew 16 months prior to the cancelation.  I don't recall being notified  fo the Expiration.  besides what does it matter when a "Loyal customer" uses ther rewards points.  Either Southwest honors thier customers loyalty or they don't. In my case one day makes the difference?  There's no way for customers to plead thier case ro explain thier situation? It is Simply a corprate approach to shorting there "Loyal" customers of their reward points.  

 

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

One possible explanation @jakez is that if you flew on points 16 months ago that wouldn't have counted for extending the expiration.

 

If you are sure of the timelime and your flight 16 months ago was a revenue flight, then call the customer service. I do think Southwest will correct things if you can show that the points expired in error and with the timeline.

 

 

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

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

jakez
Explorer A

@DancingDavidE Customer care refused to reinstate my points even after I proved to them they did not give me credit for one of my qulifing car rentals.  thier response was the rental was more than six months ago and they would not honor the qualifying purchase but in stead would give me miesly 600 point credit in good faith so they can keep my 54,300 points.  

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

Gladesgirl
Explorer C

I understand totally the fact that Southwest has to follow the rules regarding the expiration of points after a certain period of time...that this is a Frequent flyer program and my husband stopped flying for a period of time.  What I don't understand is you say you send out an email notifying the customer.  I never received any such email!  If I had I would not have let 30,000 points expire and would not be this upset!  I ask Southwest to show me the date, time and who the email was sent to.

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

LindseyD
Retired Community Manager
Solution

@Gladesgirl, the Southwest Community is a peer-to-peer discussion forum. Most of the folks you're speaking with on here are also Customers. As Moderators, we're here to keep conversations on topic, but our Customer Relations Department is equipped to help resolve Customer Service issues.

 

If you'd like a Representative to take a look at your account and do some research, please contact Customer Relations on Twitter (@Southwestair) or give them a call at 1-855-234-4654. 

 

 

 

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

jakez
Explorer A

@Gladesgirl, Good luck with talking to customer care they have been unwilling to help or resolve infact they told me there is no way for them to reinstate the Points.  Once they are expired they are expired.  If you get any respose from them that helps you please let the rest uof us know what you did because I think we would all love to have our points back! 

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

Gladesgirl
Explorer C

Can't you see the problem here, more than once you have been told there was no notice sent.  Just wrong! Not necessary to be so sinister as to just sit back and wait for the points to expire and then to send a notice that "oops, you have no points!"

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

chgoflyer
Aviator A

Unfortunately, once they've closed your account and forfeited your points, they are gone. The only way I have heard of getting them back is if you have taken a paid flight that wasn't posted to your account in the last 6 months.

 

Ultimately it's the customer's responsibility to keep track of their various loyalty accounts and their specific terms and conditions. 

 

That said, Southwest lags behind other carriers in this area. Many have points that truly never expire. Or that stay alive after any activity, including redemption. And most do a better job of notification when there's an issue.

 

United sent me no less than 4 emails, plus a written letter (with a magazine redemption offer) last year as my points were coming up on expiration.

 

Most importantly, Southwest is partially to blame for the overall issue in the first place. ("They took back my points!" is sadly a frequent complaint). Their misleading advertising is the culprit, which claims that "Points don't expire.*"

 

If you have to use a disclaimer that essentially reverses the meaning of the referenced text, you're doing it wrong.

 

Southwest would have less disappointed customers if they stopped using the misleading language in the first place, and made it clear that you must have earning activity to keep points alive. But my guess is that management has decided that a certain amount of disappointed customers is simply the price for the cost savings realized from the forfeited points. 

 

 

Re: SWA steals back my 14,475 points without any notice or warning!

jakez
Explorer A

@chgoflyer, Well Said Sir!   I also feel that the genreal impression is that southwest is supposed to care about is customers and thier loyalty by offering "Non expiring" points. Thats why we all try rack them up.  And, if Southwest really valued its loyal customers why expire them at all.  I mean if the customer rarely uses their points and continues to pay full airfare for their travel the costs to soutwest is nothing.  And, if Soutwest wipes out thier customers points then all they really created is an upset customer who will then fly with a different airline and they will actually loose future sales.  There is no costs savings in expiring points it is simply a short term trade off that turns into a more expensive loss of real revenue. 

 

Lets consider that southwest never expires thier points and every once in a while a customer uses them for a trip (which can be looked at as a loss to southwest). However, The natural result is that the custer is then going to happy, and continue flying southwest to get their point value back up resulting in real revenue than the points that were consumed.      

 

Regarding customer care: What I find funny is that @LindseyD stated "Southwest errors on the side of thier customer's" but in all of these cases there isn't a single one that is in the favor of a customer they are entirely in Southwest's favor. I have not heard of a sigle story where Southwest accidentally or purposely made an error that resulted in adding points to an account, nor that expiring a customers account benifitted the customer.