Losing track of rewards: Southwest Rapid Rewards
January 11, 2011
I’m kicking myself up the road and back right now. I knew that my Rapid Rewards Award flight was going to expire in January but forgot to check on the exact date back in December so that I could do something about it before the expiration.
Logging in, I find that dratted thing’s expired on the second and it’ll cost me $50 to reissue. And reissued awards are “subject to capacity controls, meaning seats for travel on reissued Awards will be limited and not available on all flights.”
*&@*$&(*$!!Ā
Quite. Annoyed.
The kicker here is that there was never any need to even log into my account to check on that. I keep a spreadsheet of all my airline awards specifically to track issue and expiration dates against this very scenario.Ā
*sigh* That’s really aggravating to my penny-pinching soul.
I hate it when I do that, too. Still, you farm rewards programs effectively enough that I bet you’re still ahead š
I hate losing track of things like that, especially since I take the time to record them in the first place. What I should really do is take that one extra step and put things into my Google Calendar and schedule a reminder email to automatically notify me when something is approaching an important date. Never do, of course!
If it makes you feel any better, i let a subscription for something I wanted to cancel renew for another year last week. I had a niggling feeling that I should check on it a few weeks ago, but told myself that I wouldn’t have signed up for something like that. Of course…I did. and there were no reminders by the company to jolt me into action. so I am stuck with a $78 USD charge for something that I don’t even use anymore. argh, squared. i’ve canceled it, but they don’t offer refunds.
On the upside, Southwest recently changed their Rapid Rewards program. I received an email about the change on Jan. 7th–no blackout dates, no point expiration and every seat is a reward seat. I know this doesn’t help right now, but it’s something to look forward to? I have an expired free flight as well, but I’m saving it for an expensive flight for sometime in the future. Here is the link from my email: http://www.southwest.com/newRR/homeFlash.do. Hope this helps!
patpatpat
but now it is a sunk cost!
This comment has nothing to do with this post. I’ve been seeing the sadness in your tweets, and I came to offer my condolences. Nothing rips up your soul like losing a beloved pet. My heart aches for you. I hope PiC is taking good care of you.
@The Lost Goat: Yeah, every so often, when I make a mistake I have to think – I’ve probably gotten more from them than they’ve gotten from me š
@Eli: Notifications would be key. I use account aggregators for my money so that due dates pop up so arranging something similar for this would be smart.
@Sense: RAWR that makes me angry on your behalf!
@Samantha: Hm, I hadn’t looked at that yet, thanks!