Easy Opportunity to get the Southwest Companion Pass


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The Southwest Airlines Companion Pass is by far my favorite perk in the entire travel industry. I’ve personally been a companion pass holder for 8ish years (I’ve lost track at this point) and it has saved me many of thousands of dollars. Upon earning the companion pass you can have a traveler fly with you for FREE an UNLIMITED number of times during the life of the pass. The pass is valid during the year it is earned plus the entire next calendar year. The only out of pocket cost is the taxes for the flight.

To earn the companion pass you must have 100 qualifying one-way flights or 110,000 Qualifying Points in one calendar year. If you do not fly Southwest often, your only option is the 110,00 Qualifying Points which can be earned a number of ways. One of the easiest ways to earn Qualifying Points is through the Southwest Airlines credit card. Both the sign up bonus and credit card spend count towards the required points. Currently, the sign up offer is 50,000 points after meeting the minimum spend requirements of $2,000 within the first three months. That sign up offer is for all four of their credit cards - there are two personal and two business cards. And Chase allows you to have two Southwest credit cards and if approved, you’ll get the sign up bonus for both cards. You can learn more about this current sign up offer in this prior blog post. 

That means, right now you have access to one of the easiest ways to earn the companion pass. If you apply and get approved for two cards and meet the minimum spend requirement, you’ll only need to earn another 6,000 qualifying points to obtain the companion pass. If you apply and get approved for one card and meet the minimum spend requirement, you’ll need to earn another 58,000 qualifying points to obtain the pass.

There are a bunch of ways to earn these additional points, such as:

  • Credit card spend: With the Southwest credit card you earn 2 points for Southwest purchases and 1 point for all other purchases. All points earned count as qualifying points.
  • Transferring hotel points to your Southwest account: You can transfer your points to Southwest, although your points will most likely get devalued along the way. Points transferred from your Chase Ultimate Rewards account will NOT count towards the companion pass. You can transfer your points with the following transfer ratio:
    • Club Carlson: Can only transfer in increments of 2,000, 50,000, and 100,000 – all have the same transfer ratio, where 2,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 200 Southwest Rapid Rewards points; 50,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 5,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points; and  100,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 10,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points
    • Hyatt: 5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points = 2,400 Southwest Rapid Reward points; additionally for every 50,000 points transferred from Hyatt you’ll receive an additional 6,000 points (this is the case when transferring to any partner airline from Hyatt).
    • Marriott: The more points you transfer, the better the ratio will be. However, Marriott has Hotel + Air packages which ultimately end up being a better transfer ratio (more about that below). 
      • 10,000 Marriott Rewards Points = 2,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
      • 20,000 Marriott Rewards Points = 5,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
      • 30,000 Marriott Rewards Points = 10,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
      • 70,000 Marriott Rewards Points = 25,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
      • 140,000 Marriott Rewards Points = 50,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
    • Marriott Hotel + Air Packages: Marriott offers Hotel + Air packages which ultimately ends up being a better value for your points (if it works for you with redeeming a Marriott hotel). There are four different packages depending on the number of Marriott nights you need – you can check them out here. This will give you the biggest bang for your buck, although you have to have a Marriott redemption in mind for it to work.
    • Wyndham Rewards: 8,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 1,200 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
  • Using the Southwest Airlines shopping portal: Like any other airline, Southwest also has their own shopping portal where you will earn bonus Southwest points for each purchase through a partner merchant. Right now there is no great bonus through the shopping portal, but last year, for example, there was a bonus where you’d get 15x points when shopping at Sears through the portal. So let’s say you are able to find a merchant offering 10x points per dollar spent, that means spending $600 will give 6,000 points. The best scenario is if you already have a big purchase you need to make, but I know folks have also purchased items when there is a big bonus and then re-sold them on eBay.
  • Using Target’s RedCard or Serve: With Target’s newest RedCard you can load up to $5,000 a month on a given credit card and the points earned count as any regular spend.

If you fly Southwest often or live near a Southwest hub I highly suggest looking into earning the Southwest Companion Pass. The Southwest Companion pass can even be used if the companion pass holder is using points for their flight! So the 50,000 points earned from the sign up bonus are worth about $714. And if a companion flies with you on every flight using those points, that is equal to $1,428 for that one bonus! If you are eligible for two cards then you can double the savings. Here is a prior blog series that goes through many questions you might have on the Southwest Airlines companion pass.

Just remember, the cards have different annual fees and bonus points after each anniversary year. You can read more about all three cards in this prior blog post.

Feel free to comment with any other questions!

Editorial Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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Andrew
Andrew
9 years ago

Do the signup bonuses and point transfers count towards A-list preferred status as well? I’ve made regular A-list a couple of months ago but will be about ten flights short, but have 250k marriott points so transferring out some wouldn’t be a problem.

Jason
Jason
9 years ago

can I get 2 personal cards? Or, does one have to be business?

Clifford
Clifford
9 years ago

Where can you load a serve card with a credit card? I thought CVS was the last place. Am I wrong?

Steve
Steve
9 years ago

How do you qualify over again. I got it for 2014/15 using the CC method but will not be able to requalify based on other methods as that is extremely difficult.
Any tricks for requalifying?

Bill H
Bill H
9 years ago

I accumulate cheap hotel points during the year to help requalify. A correction to your hotel conversions above: Wyndham Rewards transfer at 6,000 points to 1,200 SW – not 8,000 to 1,200 SW; and you should also mention Best Western transfers at 5,000 points to 1,200 SW and Choice hotels transfer 6,000 points to 1,800 SW. I recently bought 72,000 Choice points at about 7/10ths of a cent each during a short lived promo. They allowed you to buy up to 80K points instead of their usual limit of 20,000 at 1.1 cents each.

steven
steven
9 years ago

So if I have the pass for 2015. I want to get the 110k QP in early 2016 in order to get it for 2016/17. Is that correct?

TimmyD
TimmyD
9 years ago

Curious on others experiences – just applied for SW personal & business for my wife on the same day – personal approved, business denied, even after I talked to them for a while and got them to reprocess. 60k just seems like too much to manufacture to get to the companion pass in early 2015. I am wondering if I can have her apply for a different one of the SW personal cards after waiting a couple of months, especially if she has no more applications in that period. She has huge credit limits on her Chase cards, but only 3 cards total, so I feel like they could let her have another. Anyone have experience getting approved or denied for a second different personal SW card, particularly within a smaller time frame like this?

Jon
Jon
9 years ago

I currently have companion pass (2014 & 2015). If I want to hope for being able to reapply for southwest credit cards in the future I need to cancel at least 12 months before I plan to re-apply?

Cindy
Cindy
9 years ago

My husband just got approved for the personal & business cards and we’re on our way to meeting the spend and getting the bonus in early 2015 so we can qualify for the Campanion Pass for most of 2015 and all of 2016.

We plan to get the additional 6,000 qualifying points by using the shopping portal and transferring hotel points. However, I have more hotel points in my accounts than he does. Do any of the programs (Club Carlson, Hyatt or Marriott) allow for transfer from my hotel account into husband’s Southwest account?

Jennifer
Jennifer
9 years ago

i opened both personal cards earlier in the year when they where offering this deal. I’ve got the companion pass through 2015. However, I don’t need both personal cards. Is there a set amount of time I need to keep either card prior to canceling and not have it affect my pass?

Steph
Steph
9 years ago

I applied for both personal cards today and got approved. I’m wondering if I should start any spending on the cards until after Jan 1st, or start immediately, when I receive them? If I start spend immediately, the points I get in Nov & December won’t go towards the 110,000 total I have to get for Companion Pass b/c the balance will go back to 0 at Jan 1 (correct?). But they would go towards the $2,000 minimum spend I have to meet to get the 50k miles on each (correct?). Since I don’t think I’ll have any problem reaching $2k spend on each card in two months (Jan & Feb), then I’m thinking I should wait and use other hugher earning cards in December. What do you all think?

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