Southwest Status Clinched for Another Year
Dec. 7th, 2024 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI just clinched A-List Preferred ("A+") status on Southwest Airlines for another year. It's the highest level elite status in one of their two elite programs. Of course, I also have the other valuable elite status— I re-earned Companion Pass in October.
A+ status is much like elite status in other airlines' programs. Its main benefits are early boarding, free wifi onboard, 2 free drinks per flight, and 2x base points earned by flying. Doubling the base redeemable points theoretically has value.... I say theoretically because I have so many points right now (well over 500,000) that I'm not sure when I'll spend them or what value I'll get. Meanwhile, the early boarding feature is nice. It means I can avoid the game of trying to check in at T-24 hours just to get a good boarding order. Also, free wifi doesn't suck. It saves me $8 almost every flight. Having Internet connectivity on my phone while flying makes long flights much less boring and short flights go by in a snap.
Reaching A+ requires earning 70,000 Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) in a year. These come primarily from flying and are revenue based. (I.e., the more a ticket costs, the more points you earn. Points are not distance-based like in other airlines' programs in years past.) There are also bonuses for certain credit card activity. I managed my cards and charges adroitly to earn over 15k TQPs through them. Then there are occasionally flight bonuses, like double/triple TQPs for flights booked and flown within certain date ranges. I rebooked one of my flights from using points to spending cash to hit this year's bonus in the fall.
It's a fair bit of flying to reach A+. The various bonuses help get one there but add complexity. Since I don't fly 2-3 round trips per month like I used to it, which would make earning status like this easy, I track my activity carefully to increase my chances. At the start of the year I build a plan— a plan and a spreadsheet. By tracking progress on that spreadsheet I can adjust my plans during the year as necessary. For example, that's how I knew I needed to rebook one flight from points to miles during a promotion period— one, but not two. It's also how I decided I should open a new Southwest credit card in August to re-earn Companion Pass when my flying forecast was coming up short of plan.
No plan is perfect, of course. ...Well, actually, no forecast is perfect. That decision I made in August turns out to have been unnecessary as I've got more trips to fly in November and December than I was able to forecast clearly in August. I'll finish the year at about 75k TQP, well above the 70k threshold, and I'll hit Companion Pass's 135k CPQP (yes, a whole different type of qualifying point) threshold even without the boost from the new credit card I opened.
A+ status is much like elite status in other airlines' programs. Its main benefits are early boarding, free wifi onboard, 2 free drinks per flight, and 2x base points earned by flying. Doubling the base redeemable points theoretically has value.... I say theoretically because I have so many points right now (well over 500,000) that I'm not sure when I'll spend them or what value I'll get. Meanwhile, the early boarding feature is nice. It means I can avoid the game of trying to check in at T-24 hours just to get a good boarding order. Also, free wifi doesn't suck. It saves me $8 almost every flight. Having Internet connectivity on my phone while flying makes long flights much less boring and short flights go by in a snap.
Reaching A+ requires earning 70,000 Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) in a year. These come primarily from flying and are revenue based. (I.e., the more a ticket costs, the more points you earn. Points are not distance-based like in other airlines' programs in years past.) There are also bonuses for certain credit card activity. I managed my cards and charges adroitly to earn over 15k TQPs through them. Then there are occasionally flight bonuses, like double/triple TQPs for flights booked and flown within certain date ranges. I rebooked one of my flights from using points to spending cash to hit this year's bonus in the fall.It's a fair bit of flying to reach A+. The various bonuses help get one there but add complexity. Since I don't fly 2-3 round trips per month like I used to it, which would make earning status like this easy, I track my activity carefully to increase my chances. At the start of the year I build a plan— a plan and a spreadsheet. By tracking progress on that spreadsheet I can adjust my plans during the year as necessary. For example, that's how I knew I needed to rebook one flight from points to miles during a promotion period— one, but not two. It's also how I decided I should open a new Southwest credit card in August to re-earn Companion Pass when my flying forecast was coming up short of plan.
No plan is perfect, of course. ...Well, actually, no forecast is perfect. That decision I made in August turns out to have been unnecessary as I've got more trips to fly in November and December than I was able to forecast clearly in August. I'll finish the year at about 75k TQP, well above the 70k threshold, and I'll hit Companion Pass's 135k CPQP (yes, a whole different type of qualifying point) threshold even without the boost from the new credit card I opened.
