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Southwest Companion Pass

Aug

18

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*This post was originally written in 2016, but has been updated in 2018; including images from our TWELVE  free trips in 2016*

Let’s chat about the Southwest Companion Pass!!! I’ve posted on social media outlets about it, but I wanted to make one big blog post that I can quickly share with friends when they ask!!

First of all, what is it!?

From Southwest:

Companion Pass is the benefit that lets you choose one person to fly free* with you every time you purchase or redeem points for a flight. To qualify, simply fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 110,000 Qualifying Points in a calendar year, and you’ll earn Companion Pass for the following full calendar year, plus the remainder of the year in which you earned it.

*Does not include taxes and fees from $5.60 one-way.

Yep, you read it right. It’s a buy one, get one type of deal. But 100 one-way flights, or 110,000 qualifying points seems like a pretty insane requirement right!? Right. For good reason too. BUT we did it, and I LOVE telling people about how they can do it as well.

First thing, the easiest way to get this done is if you have a business, but never fear, we’re in the process of doing it again with two personal cards and you can too!

Okay, SO, on to how to get that Companion Pass!!!

Every few months (it’s normally right around 3 months!!) Chase has bonus offers for their Southwest cards of “earn 50,000 points when you spend 2,000 dollars on your card in the first 3 months.” as they do RIGHT NOW!!!

You can get the sign up bonuses on both the  Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Chase Credit Card and the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Chase Credit Card and they are both currently 50,000 points each after spending $2,000 in the first three months.

Business owners can also apply for the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Business Card, which earns 60,000 bonus points with $3,000 in spend in the first three months.

The 50,000 point bonuses on those two cards — plus the $2,000 you’ve spent on each — will get you to 104,000 total Rapid Rewards points, which is only 6,000 short of what you need for the 110K to get the Companion Pass!!! You can earn the remaining points either through additional spending on one of the credit cards, by flying on Southwest or through one of Southwest’s partners, such as the Southwest shopping portal.

If you get the business credit card and and meet the spending threshold, you are left with 110K in bonus points from the card plus an extra 4k from what you’ve spent!!!

We did this with a personal and business card for me when I orignally wrote this post in 2016, and now we are currently in the process of doing it again with Tyler for two personal cards in 2018!

Some things to note:

1. It’s very common for Chase to deny you applying for 2 cards at the same time. They actually didn’t for Tyler, but if they do for you, just wait the 90 days and try again. This will slow you down with getting the companion pass, but it’ll still be worth it.

2. When I applied for my business card, I got a “pending” right away, but had read this is common for business cards. You can wait it out and see if they accept it, OR you can call right away and say something like: “I recently applied for a credit card online and I am surprised I didn’t get instant approval. I wanted to see if I could help answer any questions in efforts to facilitate the process.” They will ask you a BUNCH of questions about your income, and growth for your business, but I just answered as best as I could and was approved on the phone.

Here is the number for reconsideration:

  • 888-245-0625 (Personal Cards)
  • 800-453-9719 (Business Cards)
PHEW. That’s a lot already right!?

WELL…. remember… you have to get all of these points in ONE YEAR. As in all of those bonus points, and the points you rack up with spending have to post in one calendar year. So now that we’re nearing the end of the year, this could get a little tricky. BUT it could also work in your benefit because the rules for how long you keep the companion pass look like this:
When ever you receive the pass, it is valid until December 31st of the FOLLOWING year that it’s earned. We have TONS of time left in 2018, you could potentially use this to your advantage and get a 18 months of a companion pass!!!
Here are some things in bullet form that you need to remember about the companion pass:

  • We got it by using credit cards, both a personal and business card, in 2016 and two personal cards in 2018.  You will need to spend a little chunk of change to get it.
  • With that, we are Dave Ramsey fans, but we’ve never adopted the no-credit-cards to our lives. Instead for things like this, we just put what ever we were going to spend money on any way on the credit card. Our car payment, taxes, insurance… it all went on our cards when we were trying to hit that $2,000 or $3,000 spending threshold.
  • There is an annual fee on both cards, sadly. BUT we decided that since we were going to try to limit the cards to only putting the things we were already buying on them that the $190.00 in annual fees was worth it.
  • A lot of times they will deny you if you try to open two cards at the same time. I’ve heard of people doing it at the same time and getting it approved (like Ty was this year), but I’ve heard more cases of being denied. If you are, just wait until the next time the 50,000 offer comes around and try again. Then call the reconsideration line that I mentioned above.
  • These points MUST post in a calendar year. But remember, again, a lot of times you can’t get approved for both cards in the same “bonus period”, meaning you will have to wait for another 50k bonus offer for the card you didn’t apply for. If your first card’s bonuses posts in December, but your second card’s bonuses don’t post until January, you will have lost the ability to get the companion pass.
  • Once you have the pass, you can specify your companion. You can change your companion three times.
  • You can use your companion pass on flights you book with points. So those 110,000 points you racked up… that’s a WHOLE LOTTA flights because you’re only paying for one person. #mindblowing
  • Southwest has no cancellation fees. You can change flights whenever you feel like it. BUT if you have a companion linked to the flight, you can’t change online, you will have to call.
Basically, if you’re smart & responsible with your cards you can get this without spending much extra than what you normally spend in real life (heck you could do it and ONLY spend the extra for the annual fees!)

But you need to be strategic, and study up a little bit 😉 Read the post I linked about getting the card for 23 months, or wait until the start of the new year to pursue it. Either way, it’s an incredible deal.

If you’re ready to get started, you can apply right here:

1. The Premier Card
2. The Plus Card
*These are both an affiliate link, but it will guarantee you get the 50,000 bonus points, and you’ll be helping me out 😉 

Let me know if you have any questions, and I will do my best to help you out!!! Happy Travels!

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