How to protect your Rapid Rewards points while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Rapid Rewards account. While the account holder is alive, Southwest Airlines allows transfers to another member and gift purchases.
Because Southwest Airlines' terms forfeit Rapid Rewards points at death, anything preserved is moved or used while the account holder is alive. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Rapid Rewards account. While the account holder is alive, Southwest Airlines allows transfers to another member and gift purchases.
How to protect your Rapid Rewards points
- •Redeem them for Southwest flights, hotel stays, gift cards, merchandise or experiences
- •Transfer or gift points to another Rapid Rewards member: at least 2,000 points per transaction, up to 60,000 points a day combined, paid by credit card
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
Rapid Rewards has no way to name a beneficiary or successor for the points; the terms bar transfer to an estate or by inheritance or will.1
What Southwest Airlines's terms say about sharing and transfers6
- Pooling with family
Members enroll individually and may not pool or combine points with other members.1
- Transfers to another member
A member can transfer points to another member in blocks of 1,000 during promotions and 500 otherwise, with a minimum transfer of 2,000 points and a daily maximum of 60,000 points, paid by credit card.1
Buy, gift and transfer transactions are non-refundable and nonreversible, and purchased, gifted or transferred points do not count toward A-List, A-List Preferred or Companion Pass qualification.2
- Gifting and purchases for others
Points bought as a gift must be claimed within 12 months of purchase, and unclaimed points are forfeited.1
- Redeeming points and using a balance
Points can be redeemed for flights, merchandise, hotels, gift cards and more.3
- Fees
The point value for a purchase, gift or transfer is quoted and settled in U.S. dollars.1
- Expiry and activity requirements
Points do not expire, but the points in an account are forfeited when the member closes it.1
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from Southwest Airlines primary sources (6 pages reviewed). How we research.
Rapid Rewards customer support
Customer Relations
Phone
Mailing address
Website
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