Is Southwest About To Change How Revenue Based Programs Work?

This has been the topic considerable conversation on a A-List Preferred members-only forum that I participate in. Speculation there is that these changes will primarily impact the award pricing for the new Mexico, Costa Rica, and Caribbean itineraries, and further route expansions there. Another topic of speculation, though one that I personally discount, is that Southwest is planning on getting aggressive with fare sales to grow market share but wants to do so in a way that means more revenues seats are sold - not award seats.

Personally, I'm disappointed with Southwest on this move. I can more or less understand differential pricing for the foreign markets, but if it extends beyond that it really makes no sense other than a punitive measure to burn via devaluation a growing overhang in RR points available for redemption.

"The number of Rapid Rewards points required for a redemption already varies based on factors like “destination, time, day of travel, demand, fare class, etc.” Because all of that is reflected in the price of a ticket, which is what the number of points required is based on."

Ding ding ding.

This move ONLY affects the people whose loyalty you're presumably trying to reward. Cash buyers will be unaffected. So, in a sense, it's a big middle finger to their RR members.

This devaluation is *almost* more insulting than the UA Halloween of Horror.

This is the problem with revenue based redemption. Your members will overwhelmingly use rewards on leisure routes. This means profits on the leisure routes will stay low and the business routes will stay profitable. If you want to make profit on heavy leisure routes you need to disconnect the price of the award from the price of the ticket. It would be better if they were transparent and used a multiplier when the award redemption percentage went above a certain level.

Never ceases to amaze me how much ink is devoted to what "might" happen in our miles/points world. You'd think we'd be happy with discussing to death the myriad of details of what we actually know but no, that doesn't seem to be enough. Let's jump to conclusions, predict the worst, wring our hands and discuss to death what "might" happen too. It's almost as if we think it will actually have one iota of effect on what will happen.
Here's an idea: how about just relaxing and waiting to see what actually happens so we actually know what we're lamenting and whining about?
But I guess doom-predicting and angst are a couple of the requisite parts of this points/miles blogging. Guess we gotta fill up that daily space somehow.
(Sorry, people who are so used to traveling for nearly free and then crying bloody murder whenever a business actually tries to make their business a little more profitable ("How dare they!") is just a pet peeve of mine.)

I fly Southwest more than I care to. I'm in New Mexico so the Wright Amendment made Southwest the cheapest and easiest carrier by leaps and bounds. I could frequently get non-stop flights for half the cost of a legacy carrier with multiple stops. I really hate their open seating and favor AA as my airline of choice. Since the Amendment has been repealed their fares have gone up and number of flights has decreased. This change to the reward program may be the straw that allows me to switch to AA full time since I'm more invested in AAdvantage than RR anyway.