Southwest has rolled out another points sale, discounting Rapid Rewards points by up to 50% so you can buy them for as little as 1.5 cents apiece. The promotion runs until 11:59PM CT on Thursday, October 29, 2026, and — as is typical with Southwest — the exact discount you see may vary by account, so you'll need to log in to check what you've been offered.
The headline tier works like this: buying 2,000 to 6,000 points gets you nothing off, 7,000 to 11,000 points earns a 40% discount, and 12,000 to 60,000 points unlocks the full 50%. The standard price is 3 cents per point including the 7.5% federal excise tax, so maxing out at the 60,000-point daily cap costs $900. There's no annual purchase limit — just that 60,000 per day. Purchases are processed through points.com, so they don't code as airfare on credit cards, and they don't earn elite status credit either.
Here's the catch, and it's a big one: Southwest uses revenue-based award pricing, meaning the points needed for a flight roughly track the cash fare. Redemption values currently range from about 1.1 to 1.5 cents per point. So buying points at 1.5 cents, your best-case redemption value, rarely pencils out. This isn't a flash deal either — Southwest has run the identical 50%-off promotion repeatedly through 2026, so there's little pressure to buy now for fear of missing out.
There are a few narrow cases where it can still make sense. If you're just short of a balance for a specific booking, a small top-up might be worth it, though even then you could simply wait and earn points naturally. Companion Pass holders theoretically double their value by bringing a companion along on award tickets, but the math still doesn't beat simply booking a paid fare and adding the companion to it.
The genuinely interesting argument is flexibility. Cancel a paid Southwest ticket and you generally get a travel credit locked to future flights; cancel an award ticket and the points redeposit into your account, usable by anyone, any time. For people who book speculative trips for family and friends, holding a points stash has real utility — but you can build that stash far more cheaply by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards or Bilt Rewards points to Southwest at 1:1, or by spending on Southwest's co-branded Chase cards, rather than buying at full retail.
Bottom line: unless you have an immediate, specific redemption in mind, skip this sale. The 50% discount comes back around every few months anyway.
