Updated Southwest card info to add +20,000 point offer. Southwest Airlines offers a unique feature called the , which lets you pick one person to fly with free when you book your own paid and/or award flights. If you either fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 110,000 Qualifying Points in a calendar year, you’ll earn the Companion Pass for the remainder of that year plus the following full calendar year. For example, if you earned it in September 2018, you would have the benefit for the rest of 2018 and all of 2019. You can change your designated companion up to three times each calendar year.
Points earned from credit cards count, including sign-up bonuses. You can earn very close to the 110,000 points required by signing up for Southwest co-branded consumer and/or business credit cards. In addition, the points are easy to redeem for “Wanna Get Away” airfare without having to worry about blackout dates or seat availability. There are some slight variations between them:
- 40,000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.
- Additional 20,000 points after you spend $12,000 within your first year.
- 3,000 bonus points after each Cardmember anniversary.
- 2 points per $1 spent on Southwest® purchases and Rapid Rewards® Hotel and Car Rental Partner purchases.
- 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- $69 annual fee.
- 40,000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.
- Additional 20,000 points after you spend $12,000 within your first year.
- 6,000 bonus points after each Cardmember anniversary.
- 2 points per $1 spent on Southwest® purchases and Rapid Rewards® Hotel and Car Rental Partner purchases.
- 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- $99 annual fee.
- 40,000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.
- Additional 20,000 points after you spend $12,000 within your first year.
- 7,500 bonus points after each Cardmember anniversary.
- $75 Southwest annual travel credit.
- Four Upgraded Boardings per year when available.
- 20% back on inflight drinks, WiFi, messaging, and movies.
- Earn tier qualifying points towards A-list status.
- 2 points per $1 spent on Southwest® purchases and Rapid Rewards® Hotel and Car Rental Partner purchases.
- 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- $149 annual fee.
- 60,000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.
- 6,000 bonus points after each Cardmember anniversary.
- 2 points per $1 spent on Southwest® purchases and Rapid Rewards® Hotel and Car Rental Partner purchases.
- 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
- $99 annual fee.
60,000 Rapid Rewards points redemptions vary in a narrow range, but a reasonable approximation from my experience is $900 in Wanna Get Away airfare (you are still liable for taxes and fees from $5.60 one-way). Importantly, Southwest does NOT have blackout dates or seat restrictions when you redeem with points. These points are much easier to use than a “saver award” on the traditional airlines.
Restrictions. All of these Southwest credit cards are subject to “5/24” restrictions, which means that your application will be automatically denied if you have opened 5 or more credit cards in the last 24 months (check your credit reports). Our household strategy is to have one person only apply for Chase 5/24 cards, and the other person applies for everything else. There is also this language on the consumer card:
The product is not available to either (i) current Cardmembers of any Southwest Rapid Rewards® Credit Card, or (ii) previous Cardmembers of any Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit Card who received a new Cardmember bonus within the last 24 months. This does not apply to Cardmembers of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Business Card and Employee Credit Card products.
Basically, you can get one sign-up bonus from a Southwest consumer card once every 24 months. You can also get one sign-up bonus from a Southwest business card once every 24 months. (Previously, you might apply for both a Plus and a Premier close together for example.)
If 110,000 Rapid Rewards points would have theoretically covered 16 free one-way flights, then with the Companion Pass you’d now be getting 16 free one-way flights for two people! You also can’t forget that Southwest still has the customer-friendly perk of two free checked bags per person. That’s a lot of free and flexible travel.
Another option to consider is gift card redemptions. You can still redeem 5,000 points for a $50 a Amazon.com or Wal-Mart gift certificate. That makes 50,000 points still worth $500 in Amazon or Walmart gift cards.
Our family policy is to not try out a new credit card unless it offers us $500 in total value. Just the free award flights from the points from any one of these cards is enough to satisfy that rule, and then you can add on the value of the companion tickets.
Bottom line. Right now, you can earn 100,000 Southwest points (or more) from just two credit card sign-up bonuses, which is very close to the 110,000 points needed to qualify for the Southwest Companion pass (and a lot of free Southwest flights). This would get you a free companion ticket on every flight bought with cash or points for the rest of 2018 and all of 2019. Southwest also still includes two free checked bags per person.
“The editorial content here is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.”
from .
Copyright © 2018 MyMoneyBlog.com. All Rights Reserved. Do not re-syndicate without permission.