Update 12/14/20: Reminder you have until December 15th to make the conversion.
Update 9/7/20: Today is the last day to cancel a flight to get travel funds with an expiration date of 9/7/22 (needed for this conversion). You have until December 15 to make the conversion but if the travel funds expiration date is after 9/7/22 you won’t be eligible.
Southwest travel funds can now be converted to Southwest points at a rate of 1.282 cents-per-point. For example, if you have $128 in travel funds, you can convert those to become 10,000 Southwest points.
There are lots of angles here to play with, I’ll mention a few that people are discussing:
- Keep your travel funds from expiring by converting them to points which don’t expire.
- Points will hopefully be able to be redeemed for gift cards at some future date, and converting travel funds to points will facilitate that.
- Unlock your travel funds from being tied to a specific person by converting them to points which can be used to book for anyone.
- You can increase the value of your travel funds by converting to points and then booking. For example, if you have $128 in travel funds, you can convert those to become 10,000 Southwest points, and then go book Southwest flights worth around $140 for a small gain, theoretically. Note: booking rates vary, but you should end up gaining slightly by converting travel funds to points.
- You can try buying cheap Southwest tickets and hopefully get the AmEx incidental airline credit, then convert the tickets to travel funds, and then convert the travel funds to points which won’t expire.
- You can essentially convert your Membership Rewards points to Southwest points at a rate of 1.2 Southwest points for each MR point, more details on that here.
There are downsides since points value can fluctuate and points can not be used to cover taxes/fees, but overall there are certainly many positives to consider here.
The end-date for conversion is currently showing as December 15, 2020, so you might consider waiting a few months and deciding then. Also note that only travel funds with a 9/7/22 expiration date are eligible to be converted to points. Any cancellations you make through 9/7/20 will have the 9/7/22 expiration date. So be sure to finish any schemes of racking up travel funds in the coming few weeks, and then you’ll have another two months to decide if you want to convert the travel funds to points.
Hat tip to chicago_churner and to FM
Unable to use $200 LUV voucher. Bought ticket for $100, cancelled, then tried to convert to travel funds. But website said not convertible. I know that LUV vouchers were extended until 2022, but I am now learning that I had to do make this request over the summer.
Thanks so much DoC! I had no idea about this. I had almost $200 of travel credit
Only applicable for reservations on or prior to 9/7. If you reserved after 9/7, then you are not eligible for this and your travel monies aren’t convertible to points whatsoever and must be used within 1 year of the original reservation date.
Just converted my $600. Since more funds are coming in Jan.
Reminder post! Last day
William Charles 
Chuck
1.30-1.37 cent per pt redemption is just not worth converting at 1.28 cent per point conversion. Can’t find a good value for points better than that because i live in Hawaii.
Arghhhh I forgot to do it. Kept procrastinating 🙁 🙁
same :((
Dead. Just booked a flight 2300 eastern and canceled it and the expiration shows 9/8
Converted 4x$75 SW gift cards from my 2 southwest priority card
Converted 2x$100 from AMEX incident credit from AMEX Plat
38,000 SW points added
So you bought $75 SW gift card with the $75 annual travel credit on the priority card and you are converting them to points? Any disadvantage with keeping the gift cards (expiry date?). Just a bit concerned about devaluation of points in the future. I have a SW priority card and was planning to buy SW gift card but I had not considered this points conversion.
Thanks
A. It is too late anyway for this trick.
B. why do you need to buy SW Gift Card? I am probably missing something. Make sense converting it to points if you already have gift card, but buying the card and converting does not make much sense… if you want to buy points, you could have bought the ticket with cash.. unless you mean buy GC from Amex Platinum.
VL, Not sure who your comment was for. I have a SW priority card that has an annual $75 travel credit. I don’t think I have any travel plans before my card anniversary. So does it not make sense to buy a SW gift card for $75 to make use of the credit and not lose it? Is there any other option to use the annual travel credit? There is also a 5x promo till 9/30 for any SW purchase (including gift cards).
I don’t think I will be converting to miles though. I was just trying to understand the advantage of converting gift card to miles. $x would be x/.0128 miles which maybe equivalent to (x/0.0128)*0.014 at 1.4c per mile. So a slight increase in value but not sure if it is worth the hassle.
Buggycode , my point was if you were considering converting your $$ to points by using the described trick, why would you need to buy $75 GC, and then use it for the trick… why not buy $75 ticket directly with the card… you would have gotten the same credit, and when cancelled the flight you still could chose travel funds as a refund option (which could have converted to points later)…
anyway, the option to convert SW $$ in any form to points is over now (if I understood it correctly). My only comment was if you were going for the points at the end of the day I did not understand why you would need a gift card purchase in that picture…
Unless $75 credit works on SW GCs, but does not work on SW tickets, the GC in that schema looked to me as an unnecessary step.
Sorry if I am missing something and confusing you.
P.S. At this point buying $75 GC to use your credit is a smart move, I think… you would keep it as a GC, but better than nothing.
Thanks VL. Maybe my post was a bit off topic. I know that the thread was about converting travel funds to points. I do not have any travel funds. But kevin’s post caught my eye and it seemed as if he had gift cards and he converted them to points as part of the promo. I was wondering what the advantage was and why not just hold on to the gift cards (anyway the promo has ended and the point is moot). Thanks for taking the time to reply in detail.
Sure. Good luck! Definitely convert your credit to GC if you do not plan any travel. Make sure to not loose it.
The benefits of points vs travel credit were explained in the post in details. GC is definitely better than credit (as it does not expire), but I would prefer points. CGs for me is a “travel credit once removed”, because if you had to cancel your ticket purchased with GC you would get travel credit 🙂 .. and the main value of SW for me is making all sorts of speculative bookings (when opportunity presents itself) with the points which are easy to cancel with no loss. Some of those bookings result in a great travel experiences which would have never happened otherwise.
All the best.
“Southwest points for each MR point, more details on that here.”
That link appears going to someone’s profile