reedsterg said:

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I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I don't understand the SW points logic sometime. I was looking at a flight to Cozumel from one day to the next and the increase in miles is not proportionate to the increase in price. Basically a 49% increase in $, but 73% increase in miles. You could argue not even to waste your points on cheap fares like this in the first place, but if points are worth a specific amount (they say 1.3-1.5 cents), why is it not proportionate to the price? Example below:

Sunday
$130 or 4,730 miles + $47.60 ($82.40 net)

Monday
$170 or 8,170 miles + $47.60 ($122.40 net)

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The $ value of the remaining seats is different than what they are willing to ask you to pay for the remaining seats via points. They have some calculation in mind of how much actual revenue they need to make on the flight to balance how many seats they are giving away in points. They know they can only raise the dollar value a certain amount without losing any chance of selling the seat against other competitors. But they know that somebody wanting to use points can only use the points with them. So they can charge a value for the few remaining seats that is higher in points to offset the $ value of the seat than they normally would. Also, including the fees in the calculation of net $ skews the calculation because the fees are the same for both tickets and are controlled by the governments, not the airline.