23. Will Southwest institute capacity controls on Rapid Rewards tickets?
a. (southwest.com) Yes. Beginning February 10, 2006, all Awards issued will have no systemwide blackout dates and
will be subject to seat restrictions. (Note: These awards are numbered 52605xxxxxxxx.)
- Awards issued before February 10, 2006 (numbered 52604xxxxxxxx) will have no seat restrictions, but are subject to published blackout dates.
- Awards issued on or after February 10, 2006 will have seat restrictions, but no systemwide blackout dates. Members need to be flexible when choosing times and dates to their destinations as certain holiday or peak travel periods will be in high demand and that makes booking Award travel difficult.
- Last-minute Award usage will still be allowed based on seat availability.
Awards are still valid for 12 months.
- Companion travel will still have no seat restrictions or blackout dates
b. (High on Luv) Standby travel will be permitted on the new Awards
if you have a confirmed reservation on a new Award on the the SAME day.
c. (nsx) One way to beat blackout dates and capacity controls is to get your hands on a Green Pass, also known as a "Must Ride" pass. Crew members use these when they absolutely, positively need to get somewhere, for example for the start of an assigned trip. Green passes are typically issued to employees as incentives, and although they are not supposed to be sold a few of them show up on eBay. Caveat emptor.
d. (High on Luv) As of mid-February 2006 you need to login before you can book a rapid Rewards ticket. You will see availability based on the Award types in your accounts. If you only have the new Rapid Rewards Awards, then you only see availablity for that Award type. If you have both types, then you will see two columns on the "select flight" screen so you can determine which Award you want to use based on seat availability.
e. (nsx) In my initial look at capacity controls in mid-February, March spring break flights to Florida were virtually blacked out. While this may be the same story you would get using a legacy saver award this close to the travel date, it was still a disappointing let-down from the usability of the old unrestricted awards.
Availability around Memorial Day (3.5 months in the future) was much better: perhaps 30% of flights on most days, including the old blackout days. This indicated a likely need to book 3 or 4 months ahead with the new awards. And there were no seats at all allocated for June.
It turned out that this was some sort of implementation error, and it was corrected February 23 when the schedule horizon was extended to August 3.
Availability for capacity-controlled awards is now quite reasonable, about what I had originally expected to see and far better than saver award availability on legacy carriers. Friday and Sunday travel for popular destinations like Las Vegas will have tight availability, but you can even book those trips if you plan far enough ahead.
f. (High on Luv) The availability of "new" Award seats on a flight is not at all dependent upon the number of Awards with blackout dates that are already booked. The "new" Award seats are allocated on a per flight basis, which is why you can see availability of all flights when you're booking at southwest.com. There is no correlation between the number of "new" and "old" Award reservations on a flight.
g. (nsx) The change described in (d) above makes it impossible for you to check availability of capacity-controlled seats unless and until you have earned a capacity-controlled Award. That's unfortunate, and I hope Southwest considers giving us a way around this limitation. The good news is that you can check availability for up to 8 seats even if you only have one award (or even half an award) in your account.