Questions for a live chat with Jonathan Clarkson, Director - Rapid Rewards

Do you follow the comments about WN on sites like Milepoint and realize that probably 80+% of your customers are dissatisfied with RR 2.0 as we call it? If so, have you passed that up the line to Gary Kelly and the Board?

Do you truly understand the depth of hostility you are fighting against as the result of the many changes WN has made in the last couple years?

Do you and your higher-ups realize how utterly screwed-up your website has been for months? If not, why not?

And I second the comments on allowing Awardwallet and similar services to pull our info so that we can follow our rewards all in one spot. I can automate it like that or I can waste a ton of time doing it for myself and several family members through southwest.com.

Several of my co-workers have recently received companion passes. While excited at first, the single ones are now torn with what to do and have been complaining that this is just a benefit for married people. They may want to take one trip with their mom, another with a cousin, but there is no ONE person in their lives they would name for a full year. Will you ever consider offering a companion pass for people in this situation with, perhaps, 10 companion flights for any companion? By reducing the number of flights it could be used with they could name the particular companion for that flight?

We've been having this discussion at the office a lot recently since many people are getting ready to hit companion pass status or already have for the year. Everyone agrees the companion pass is a huge benefit for frequent SW flyers (I'm pretty close to getting mine!) and for those of us with obvious "companions" it's easier to name your companion. I realize the reason for naming one person is to limit the number of free companion flights, so offering the option to limit your own flights, but name any companion would do the same thing. (We are all aware of the 3 changes per year, but that takes quite awhile since it has to be done in writing via snail mail)

Any possibility of something like this happening?

Maybe Southwest wants to encourage them to settle down?

I mean, maybe it would even make a pretty good (by which I mean 'really bad') line, "Hey baby, I'm entitled to a Southwest companion pass, wanna have a relationship?"

Could you please let customers have the ability to view the expiration dates of their Ticketless Travel Funds?

This week I booked a trip with a TTF and a SW Gift Card. A few moments later I booked another trip with a second TTF and SW Gift Card. The second trip wouldn't accept the TTF since it was 3 days after the TTF was due to expire. When I cancelled the first trip and second trip, I had hoped to combine the two TTFs and use them on the first trip since it was before both TTFs were due to expire. But now the computer system has merged the GCs with the TTFs and I was unable to separate them in order to combine the two TTFs into one flight. I spoke to a Customer Service rep, a rep and a supervisor in Customer Relations, and all said the system would not allow it to be done even by them.

I understand that you cannot use TTFs past their expiration. I had explained to your staff that I just needed to switch how the TTFs and GCs were applied to my trips in order not to lose my available funds. It would not have extended the life of the TTFs. If I had seen the expiration dates in my account, it would have saved a lot of time wasted and frustration.

Thank you.

A Bachelor or Bachelorette in the making!

I used to fly Southwest a bunch and loved the attitude and overall flying experience, but as a very tall traveler, it became entirely too stressful (and frequently uncomfortable) for me to fly with an open seating plan. I know that I can pay up to 3X-4X more for Business Select and get further up the queue for seating, but still nothing is guaranteed, and the dramatic increase in price hardly makes the chance any more worthwhile.

I'd love to come back to Southwest, but the arrangement is prohibitive for my stature. On other airlines I can at worst pay a little extra for an exit row seat. Can Southwest do anything to help the plight of the overly tall?

My questions are really simple

1. Why SWA has to pose themselves as a low-cost airline, which in fact they are not?

2. By switching to RR 2.0, what is the impact to SWA?

Why should I bother with Southwest if there is a choice of carriers in the market? WN offers a boring FF program that is merely a 10% rebate on fare paid, a percentage far lower than is possible redeeming in legacy carrier programs. And no upgrades of course. P.S.: I haven't bothered with WN since RR 2 was introduced. I have a couple of credits sitting there and they'll probably expire. See if I care.

+1 Lol I'll pass that along, see if it works out for any of them.

It would be nice to see unused funds on our RR accounts. As it is now, I have to save all of my cancelation emails to ensure I have the confirmation code to use the funds. Delta (in a rare moment of IT competence) has all of your credits, vouchers, upgrades, companion passes, etc listed on your SM account. Makes it easy to use, check balances, etc.

How do I roll my previoous credits into the new Rapid Rewards program. They're due to expire November 3 and I will be flying again with Southwest November 7 -10. I hate to lose my credits as I don't fly for business and don't accumulate that easily, but love Southwest.