Your Friend Or Spouse Flies Free With New Southwest Airlines Credit Card Offer
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Chase and Southwest are out with really special offers for their Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards credit cards. Instead of earning a bunch of points from an initial bonus, and then still needing (say) 50,000 more points to earn a Companion Pass, a Companion Pass valid through February 28, 2024 is included as part of the initial bonus offer. And you earn bonus Rapid Rewards, too.
A friend or spouse you designate can travel with you free (plus government taxes) whenever you fly – whether you’re traveling on points or a paid ticket, as long as there’s still a seat for sale on the aircraft.
This limited-time offer – earn Companion Pass® good through 2/28/24 plus 30,000 points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening – is available with all three of their consumer cards.
- Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card This $149 annual fee card provides a $75 Southwest® travel credit each year; 25% back on in-flight drinks, WiFi, messaging, and movies; and 4 upgraded boardings per year when available (when A1-15 boarding positions are offered at the gate, buy it and you’ll receive a statement credit for the charge); and 7,500 anniversary points each year.
- Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card You earn 3,000 anniversary points each year on the $69 annual fee card.
- Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card You earn 6,000 anniversary points each year (after your cardmember anniversary), a nice incentive to keep this $99 annual fee card, and you receive 2 EarlyBird Check-In® credits each year.
The application page for these offers say they end 3/13/2023. I do not know what time on March 13th the offers will be pulled, nor which links may be pulled first. But the sooner you take advantage of the offer, the longer you’ll have to use the Companion Pass.
What I like about Southwest is that they have no change fees, you can use your points even to make a speculative booking. It’s always great to have Southwest points around, even if you book mostly international award tickets.
You might need a domestic flight to get to the city your international award ticket leaves from. Or book the Southwest flight, and if award availability opens up to include a domestic flight on your other ticket, great, there’s no change fees. Southwest points are great insurance. They don’t have other fees either like checked bag fees or change fees.But the real value here is the Companion Pass.
Without this offer Companion Pass is tougher for many The requirement went up from 125,000 qualifying points to 135,000 qualifying points – but Southwest cardmembers will get a 10,000 point boost which makes up for the difference in any case, and helps earn the companion pass for use in 2024. (The points from the card’s initial bonus offer count, too.)
Companion Pass doubles the value of your points You can take a companion with you when you travel for just the cost of taxes whether you’re buying a paid ticket or one with points. When you redeem points for yourself, and use the companion pass, that’s twice as much travel – the points go twice as far.
In addition to card initial bonuses, card spending, Southwest flights, and lucrative hotel bookings through the Southwest portal all count towards Companion Pass. But meet the terms of the card’s initial bonus and you’ll earn one without any additional effort.
Chase’s ‘5/24’ applies, so to be approved you likely need to have opened fewer than 5 new card accounts in the past 24 months. And to be approved for these cards you cannot be a current Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit Card (consumer) cardmember and you cannot have received an initial bonus for one of these cards in the past 24 months.
If you’re a semi-regular Southwest flyer then I consider the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card to be by far the best deal. If you aren’t, and your key interest is that initial bonus (and the 10,000 point credit towards companion pass) then the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card is your best bet.
I have a Companion Pass I earned with a Southwest Airlines credit card. It’s easy to use, and Southwest is the largest airline at my home airport in Austin. I generally buy a ticket for myself, bring my wife as my companion, and redeem points for my daughter. This is one of the very best values in travel.
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