Florida here we come!
Southwest Airlines has a loyalty program called Rapid Rewards. The big time perk you can obtain from this program is the Companion Pass. With a Companion Pass, another person who you designate as your "companion" can fly FREE on ANY flight you are flying. The companion flies free the entire year you earn the companion pass PLUS the following year. I earned my Companion Pass on February 5th. That means my companion will fly free with me until December 31st 2021.
You can earn a Companion Pass by either obtaining 125,000 Rapid Rewards points or flying 100 Southwest flights in a calendar year. Points can be earned the following ways...
6 points per dollar for Wanna Get Away fares on Southwest flights
10 points per dollar on Anytime fares on Southwest flights
12 points per dollar on Business Select fares on Southwest flights
1 point per dollar on purchases made with a Southwest credit card
2 points per dollar on Southwest Airlines purchases made with a Southwest Credit card
booking hotels through the Southwest Airlines travel portal
shopping or dining through the Southwest Airlines portals
Southwest Airlines credit card sign up bonuses
You CANNOT earn points that count for the Companion Pass by transferring points into your Rapid Rewards account or by buying points.
I earned my Companion Pass with two credit card bonuses.
I discovered that in the travel hacking world "Companion Pass Season" starts in mid-October... meaning that is when most people trying to earn a Companion Pass for the following 2 years start looking for credit card bonuses. The way this works is that all of the Chase co-branded Southwest Airlines credit cards currently have sign up bonuses. Once you get approved for a credit card you have 3 months to meet the minimum spend requirement to obtain your bonus. The bonus points will be credited to your Rapid Rewards account only AFTER you meet your minimum spend requirement. Since all 125,000 Rapid Rewards points counting towards a Companion Pass have to be earned in one CALENDAR year the goal is to get your credit card bonus in January, NOT December.
For clarification, the Rapid Rewards points themselves never expire. If you have 124,000 Rapid Rewards points on December 31st you will still have them in your account to use to redeem for flights on January 1st. However, you will have zero points counting towards a Companion Pass on January 1st as the eligible points towards a Companion Pass resets every calendar year.
The first credit card I got was the Southwest Performance Business Card. When I signed up for it last year it offered a sign up bonus of 80,000 points after I spent $5000 in the first 3 months. (The current sign up bonus is 70,000 points.) It also comes with a $95 credit that you can use towrads either TSA Pre-check or Global Entry. I was approved for the card on October 14, 2019. That meant I had to spend $5000 by January 14, 2020 in order to get the sign up bonus. The annual fee for this card is $199. The annual fee is billed on your first bill and does not count towards the $5000 minimum spend. I spent $4500 to have several large dead trees removed from my yard in November. then put the card away until January. There are stories of people either accidentally meeting their minimum spend requirement in December or getting super close to their minimum spend requirement in December and Chase going ahead a rewarding them with their bonus points as a courtesy and I did not want to take any chance of that happening!
You need to wait at least 30 days in between applying for credit cards with Chase.
The second credit card I got was the Southwest Premier Business Card. The sign up bonus for this is 60,000 points after you spend $3000 in the first 3 months. The annual fee is $99. I was approved for this card on December 4, 2019. That meant I had until March 4, 2020 to meet my minimum spend requirement. I had a homeowner's insurance bill due in February of around $2500 so I used this card to pay the insurance bill plus my January electric bill and some groceries and gas.
As you can see, I used my credit cards for things I would normally have had to spend money on anyway. As soon as my February statement hit, BOOM!, I had a Companion Pass.
The other beauty of the Rapid Rewards program is that you only need to EARN the points to get the Companion Pass. Southwest doesn't subtract 125,000 points from your account for the Companion Pass. That means that I had over 148,000 Rapid Rewards points in my account (80,000 bonus points + 5000 points for minimum spend #1 + 60,000 bonus points + 3000 points for minimum spend #2) that I could use to redeem for flights. You also do not have to have all 125,000 points IN you account at one time to earn the Companion Pass. That means that once I earned that 80,000 point bonus that hit my account in January I could have redeemed some of those points for flights right away but I would still have those points count towards earning a Companion Pass.
My husband and I planned to go to Florida. You can add a Companion to any flight you have a ticket on as long as there is a seat available on that flight. It does not matter what kind of fare that seat sells for; as long as there is a seat still available you can add a Companion. The flight we wanted to take had only one seat left at the cheapest Wanna Get Away fare earlier this month. My February credit card statement had not closed yet but I knew I would be getting a Companion Pass and I didn't want to lose the opportunity to "buy" the last cheap seat on this flight so I went ahead and redeemed some of my Rapid Rewards points for this flight. Once I had a seat it didn't matter what fare seats were left on this flight. As long as the flight was not sold out I could add my husband for free at any time.
Doing the math...
My flight to Florida: $92 or 5588 points +$5.60 tax
My flight back home: $187 or 9578 points +$5.60 tax
Husband's flight to Florida: $5.60 for tax
Husband's flight home: $5.60 tax
I used 15,166 Rapid Rewards points + $22.40 in taxes for two round trip tickets to Florida.
The cash price for this trip would have been $558.
I paid $298 in annual credit card fees. In just one trip I am already $260 ahead.
You can bet we will be doing a lot more traveling this year!
Southwest flies all over the US, Mexico, the Caribbean, as well as some countries in Central America such as Belize and Costa Rica.
If you want to short cut your own way to a Companion Pass here are the current credit card offers...
Southwest Performance Rapid Rewards Business Card
$5000 minimum spend in first 3 months
70,000 point bonus
$199 annual fee
Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards Business Card
$3000 minimum spend in 3 months
60,000 point bonus
$99 annual fee
Southwest Priority Rapid Rewards Personal Card
$1000 minimum spend in first 3 months
40,000 point bonus
$169 annual fee
*additional 35,000 point bonus after spending a total of $5000 in first 6 months
Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards Personal Card
$1000 minimum spend in first 3 months
40,000 point bonus
$99 annual fee
*additional 35,000 point bonus after spending a total of $5000 in first 6 months
Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Personal Credit Card
$1000 minimum spend in first 3 months
40,000 point bonus
$169 annual fee
*additional 35,000 point bonus after spending a total of $5000 in first 6 months
*35,000 bonus point offer ends February 10, 2020
I have only listed the bonus point earning benefits of each card. Each card also has a whole list of other benefits depending on what "level" of card you get, hence the difference in annual fees.
Chase rules state you can only have one Southwest co-branded personal card. That means if you want a personal card you can get either the Priority, Premier, or Plus card but only ONE of these. You are allowed one personal card but as many business cards as you want, provided you get approved.
I used my Etsy store as my business. There are a myriad of things you can do to qualify as a business. If you sell online (ie eBay), provide services (house sit, baby sit, walk dogs, etc), rent houses... all those things make you a business. You do NOT need an EIN number to get a business credit card. You can apply as a sole proprietor. As a sole proprietor you would enter YOUR NAME as your business name and use your social security number as your tax ID number. Chase does not care what you charge on a business card. What you count as business expenses are between you and the US government, not your credit card company.
If you do not qualify for a business card, now would also be a good time to get a personal credit card because of the increased sign up bonus. Get approved before February 10, 2020 and you could earn a 75,000 point bonus. You would then have until December 31st to earn the additional 45,000 points (45,000 since you will have earned 5000 points with spend to get the 75,000 point bonus) with your regular spend plus any bonus spend through shopping or dining through the Southwest portals. As you can see pretty much one flight will more than make up for your annual fees. Obviously the earlier in the year you get the Companion Pass the more use you will get out of it, but even if you earn it in December you will have another whole year to use it.
Hope someone can use this information.
Happy travels!
