[Post below has been updated]
Southwest has added an option for those who don’t have a Southwest credit card to redeem points for gift cards at around 3/4 of a penny per point. Previously, only card-holders were able to redeem for gift cards.
Southwest cardholders are able to redeem points at $.01 per point toward gift card redemptions (slightly lower value for the lower $25 denomination). Non-cardholders can now also redeem for gift cards at the lower .74 cents per point, or roughly 3/4 cent per point (the $25 denomination is around .62 cents per point). They have lots of great gift cards available like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and more.
It was – and is – a better value to redeem Southwest points for flights, but given the fixed-value nature of Southwest points, it’s not a terrible deal to redeem points for Amazon gift cards if you weren’t finding the Southwest points useful. Those without a Southwest card can only get .74 cents per point making the math worse.
Southwest just recently opened up Gift Card redemption for ppl without an active Southwest card. The new lower values are for these accounts. If you have an active Southwest card, you still see the old values. I have a current card and wife does not. I see the old values ($50 for 5000) and she sees the new lower values. Just logged in and confirmed this.
Thanks, updated the post now with this information.
I was considering applying for the new speculative premium SW card this summer with the $150 AF, just to get that 70k points and add it to my current balance of ~24k and then redeeming the entire thing for gift cards since I really don’t fly Southwest anymore. Is it only the current Southwest cardholders that will be grandfathered in at the 1c valuation or will new cardholders also get that valuation?
So the deal is this. Before this week non credit holders could not gift cards. Now non-credit card holders can get gift cards but .74 cents per point. Credit card holders will continue to get the 1 cent of gift card per point at the 50 dollar level and up.
Dammit Southwest stop devaluing points by adding redemption options that weren’t there before!
/s
I closed out both of my CCs in January of this year (had opened Plus and Premier last January for Companion Pass purposes) and I’m still seeing the lower rates for gift cards. However, when I’m not logged in and I browse incognito, I see the higher rates. It’s been this way for a couple weeks.
Either they haven’t flagged me yet as a not-current cardmember, or somehow my current companion pass is getting me the better deal.
I still see $50 amazon @ 5,000 points (have SW+ and SW Biz)
i see still 5000 pts for 50$ GC, spooked me enough to redeem 10k points immediately. need to think about more redemption
I think you accidentally left off a couple lines there at the end of the post.
DoC – I think this may actually be an “added benefit” if you will. When I login to MY southwest account I can redeem at the old rates. When I login to my daughter’s southwest account (who is a minor and has no southwest CC) she can now also redeem for gift cards but at these lower rates. I don’t believe she had the option to redeem for gift cards in the past.
Thanks for correcting the info in the post. It makes more sense now. 🙂
My guess is they have had a lot of people cashing them out after the recent devaluation and are trying to screw them too.
I posted this on r/churning two days back only to get downvoted to death. Some users said that you can still get the 1cpp GC redemptions if you have a SW card open.
I felt like such a fool a year ago when I purchased a $100 Budget Rent-A-Car Certificate for 10k Southwest Points. For me I can almost book a roundtrip flight from Minneapolis to LAX for 10k (I typically find them for under 12k). So those points were worth much more, plus Budget doesn’t let you combin it with a coupon, I thought it was like a gift certificate, guess not.
Needless to say never again. I have over 100k points banked, I’ll likely just book ahead and if the price drops get the adjustment 😉
It’s been saying the latest is November 3rd for about a month now when will it change?!