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Southwest is offering a 40% bonus on buying, gifting or transferring pointsInvalid request error occurred. through January 23rd.

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The Promotion

Below are details of the promotion:

  • Offer is valid between January 9, 2018, 12:00:01 a.m. CST and January 23, 2018, 11:59:59 p.m. CST.
  • Member will receive 40% bonus points when they purchase a minimum of 5,000 Rapid Rewards® points in a single transaction.
  • When the Member gifts or transfers 5,000 or more Rapid Rewards points in a single transaction, the recipient will receive 40% more points as bonus Rapid Rewards points

If you purchase the maximum allowed, you will receive 60,000 points plus 24,000 bonus points for a total of 84,000 points. The total cost is $1,650, about 1.96 cents per point.

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Remember that you can only redeem Southwest points for a fixed amount – usually though not always for about 1.33 cents per point.

(SEE ALSO: Yes, you CAN get 2.55 cents per Southwest point!)

So obviously buying points at 1.96 cents per point and redeeming them at 1.33 cents per point is not a winning strategy!  I’d say the only real opportunities where this might make sense is if you have multiple accounts with points in them and don’t have enough to book your flights and need to consolidate.  One option would be to have the individual accounts buy flights for individual people, but that doesn’t always work out for flying.

If you have questions about whether or not this makes sense for you, send me an email or post over in our free Points With a Crew miles and points Facebook group

Conclusion

Purchased points can represent great value sometimes. But as always, you need to crunch the numbers to ensure it makes sense.  (SEE ALSO: When does buying airline miles make sense?  ONLY in these 3 instances)

During the past two years, Southwest has offered bonus on purchase points about four times a year, and the maximum bonus ranged from 30% to 40%. So the current promotion is on the high side. As I always say, if you don’t have an urgent need for Southwest points, I would recommend waiting for the next promotion with higher bonus.  I generally would only buy Southwest or any other type of miles or points if you have a specific short-term need for them

Buy, gift or transfer Southwest points here with a 40% bonus through January 23rd (I may receive a commission if you buy points through this link)


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