UPDATE: This “trick” no longer works due to the merger on November 1, 2104.Â
On November 1, 2014, AirTran will be closing all frequent flyer accounts. This means you have until October 31, 2014 to extend the life of your Southwest Airlines standard award free tickets through the AirTran transfer loophole. These are NOT Southwest points, but actual free tickets that are capacity controlled through the old Rapid Rewards 1.0 program. I’ve written about this a few times before (here and here, and I am sure a few more times but I cannot find the posts!), but I want to point out this opportunity again for those not in the loop!
By transferring points between Southwest and AirTran you are able to do extend your free ticket for one more year. This means that you must use your ticket by this expiration date (not simply book by this date).
So let’s say you have a roundtrip award that is set to expire on February 1, 2015. If you do not currently have that award booked, follow these steps to extend the ticket another year. The new expiration date will be one year from the date you to this (i.e, one year from today).
- Go to the Southwest’s transfer points to AirTran site here (you must be signed onto your Southwest account).
- Enter your AirTran A+ Rewards account information. If you do not currently have an AirTran account number just quickly create one here. I have found that just the last names need to match to transfer between Southwest and AirTran, so if another family member has an account you can use theirs too.
- In the “Awards & Certificates section†all your non-expired Standard awards will be listed. Select the standard award to transfer to AirTran – if it is a one way award it will transfer into 8 A+ credits and if it is a roundtrip award it will transfer to 16 A+ credits. If you have two one way awards, transfer both of them separately into your AirTran account.
- Sign into your AirTran account and you will notice that you have 16 A+ credits
- Go back to the Transfer site (from step #1) and transfer your 16 A+ credits from AirTran back into two Southwest standard certificates. Make sure to select the AirTran button this time and enter “16” in the number of credits to transfer over.
- If you go back into your Rapid Rewards account you will see a new expiration date listed for one year from today.
While I am sad to see this extension option going away, I’m glad that I’ve been able to extend the life of my award tickets for a few more unexpected years!
Some things to know:
- This will not work if you only have a one-way standard award ticket available. However, you are able to transfer the amount of points required for a one-way award to get the full roundtrip. This would require 9,600 points.
- I’ve been able to transfer between Southwest and AirTran accounts where only the last name matches. This means if you have 1 one-way award and a family member with the same last name has another one-way award, you can transfer them both into the same AirTran account and then transfer those 16 A+ credits back into one Southwest account. You can then book a free ticket for anyone from that Southwest account.
- The AirTran website says that the last day to make changes to your account is October 15, 2014, which mean that they might not allow you to create a new account after this date, but not 100% sure.
I will post more tomorrow on exchanging your Southwest Rapid Reward points into Southwest free award tickets like the ones referred to above. This also requires the AirTran transfer loophole and it must be done by October 31, 2014.
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I currently have airtran credit which will turn into points on nov 4 and it does not expire. What is the benefit of turning those into southwest standard award? Should I do that or no since standard award are hard to book. Flight availability is limited.
@leslie – It really depends on how you travel. If you are extremely flexible then standard awards can be great. But if not and not sure if you will use the award within the next year then do the points.
Could you please clarify your comment, “I have found that just the last names need to match to transfer between Southwest and AirTran, so if another family member has an account you can use theirs too.” I have a family member with the same last name who has some extra Rapid Rewards (RR) points. Logged into his RR account, I went to the page where you can convert RR points to AirTran credits and tried putting in my own login name and password when it asked me to log into the AirTran account I wanted to transfer RR points to. I got the error message, ” The name on your A+ account does not match the name on your Southwest Rapid Rewards account.” Is there a workaround? I am trying to get one of those free Standard Awards by 10/31 by using the trick of transferring RR points to A+ Rewards credits back to RR points, but I don’t have quite enough RR points myself. Thanks!
@Rebecca – Sometimes it works for me and sometimes it does not. Maybe they fixed this glitch. I’ve also found that if it is the same title (Mr. vs. Mrs, etc.) and the same last name then the first name matching might not matter.
You could try going into your AirTran account and change the first name so it matches.
Thanks for the good idea. Unfortunately, the last date to make changes to names and other personal information in A+ Rewards accounts was 10/14. I could potentially change the name and date of birth in the Rapid Rewards account temporarily and then change it back. Do you know of any disadvantages to trying that trick?