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The Southwest Companion Pass is highly coveted in the points and miles world for 5 good reasons:
1) It allows you to take a travel partner of your choice anywhere you go for just the flight taxes, $5.60 each way.
2) It is unlimited nearly free flights for your travel partner
3) If timed correctly, you can have this for nearly 2 full years
4) You can get it over and over again
5) Both you and your spouse can get it at the same time and have 2 of your children fly nearly for free!
How to Get It
You will need to complete one of these 2 in a calendar year to receive a Companion Pass from Southwest:
1) Complete 100 qualifying one way flights or 50 roundtrip flights
or
2) Earn 135,000 Southwest Points
Unless you fly a ton for work, option 2 would be your best bet. You can earn these points by opening 2 Southwest Credit cards. I always suggest opening the business credit cards first because those are harder to be approved for. Once you have that one, the personal credit card should be easier to get. Be mindful of your 5/24 status and 90 day timeline when applying for your first card.
Plan A:
The 2 cards you need to open if you are doing this alone:
1) The $199 annual fee Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance business card with a welcome bonus of 80,000 points
2) The $69 annual fee Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus personal credit card with a welcome bonus of 60,000 points
80,000 + 60,000 = 140,000 points
Congratulations! You just received a Companion Pass
Plan B:
If your player 2 will also be applying for this then player 1 can open these:
1) The $99 annual fee Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier business card with a welcome bonus of 60,000 points
2) Refer player 2 with your business credit card link to earn 20,000 points
3) The $69 annual fee Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus personal credit card with a welcome bonus of 60,000 points
60,000 + 20,000 + 60,000 = 140,000 points
Congratulations! You just received a Companion Pass
Player 2 will proceed with Plan A discussed in the first section and also get a Companion Pass!
Plan C:
If you have the power of persuasion then this option is for you:
1) Open the $199 annual fee Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance business card with a welcome bonus of 80,000 points
2) Convince 3 friends or family members to open a Southwest Credit Card using your referral link to receive 20,000 points for each referral.
80,000 + 20,000 + 20,000 + 20,000 = 140,000 points
Congratulations! You just received a Companion Pass
The Best Timeline to Apply
WHEN you apply for these cards is EXTREMELY important. Companion Pass season starts in late October. The reason for this is because Southwest credit cards give you 3 months to meet your minimum spends, putting you at January of the following year to meet it. You will have to ensure that you do not meet the minimum spend on either card until January. The reason for this is because the Companion Pass will be good for the year in which you earn it AND for the FULL following year. Meeting your minimum spends in January will give you the opportunity to have it for almost the full 2 years.
You do not want to meet your minimum spend on January 1st because Southwest might apply that to the previous statement and they might count that as you earning your Companion Pass in December and that would count as your first year. For this reason I said Companion Pass season starts in late October. You would want to meet your minimum spend in late January to ensure it counts the new year as your first year. If you are okay with waiting you could also apply for it in November or December and still get almost 2 full years of the Companion Pass.
Next thing I will warn you about will be 2 disasters that happened to me and my husband when we were both going for the Companion Pass. Spoiler alert, only one of us got it, and that was even a miracle. We both applied in mid October because I couldn’t wait to start on getting my Companion Pass.
Disaster 1: My husband had been spending on his business card in preparation for getting close on that minimum spend so he could begin on his personal card minimum spend. Well he did such a good job of getting close that he completed his minimum spend in December when he excitedly bought Taylor Swift tickets that cost a lot. Since he had come so close to his minimum spend, those tickets quickly took him over. Lesson 1: Leave a good buffer of a few hundred dollars to spend in January so that this doesn’t happen to you.
Disaster 2: Even if he had not met his minimum spend in December, he still would not have gotten a Companion Pass because he was not approved for a personal Southwest Credit Card due to him having balances on other credit cards. Lesson 2: Pay off your balances in full on credit cards so you are approved for all the credit cards you apply for.
Disaster 3: I did not heed the warning of leaving a few hundred dollars of the minimum spend for January. I thought I would be good with $50 left. I told myself I had full control of this situation. I was wrong. I completely forgot I had monthly recurring Amazon subscriptions that I had charged to that card. I changed my preferred payment method on my Amazon account but that DOES NOT change your payment for subscriptions. One of my subscriptions hit my account in December taking me close to my spending limit. I was now a few dollars away from meeting my minimum spend and I still had a week and a half left of December. Lesson 3: Leave a few HUNDRED dollars left for January.
Last Things to Know:
- Create your Free Southwest Rapid Rewards account and have your account number handy for when you apply for your credit cards. There will be a spot in the application to put your account number so that all your points from both credit cards are put into the same account.
- You may not combine points with your player 2 into one account. Points must stay in each person’s account.
- Even though Chase is a transfer partner to Southwest, you may not transfer Chase points to Southwest and have those count toward your 135,000 point requirement.
- You automatically get the Companion Pass once you hit the 135,000 points. You do not have to trade in your 135,000 points to get the pass. Your partner travels for just the flight taxes AND you can use those 135,000 points you earned to book your tickets with those points. These flights will cost both of you just the flight taxes!
- You can change your travel partner up to 3 times per year. So if you break up with your player 2 or that person can’t make it on one trip, you can take someone else.
- When booking a flight you will book yours first on the app or website. Then you will be able to add your Companion later.
- You must be present on the flight for your companion to get on. You cannot simply book your ticket and then only have them show up to take the flight.
- You can start the process again to earn a Companion Pass 24 months after the bonus was received. So if you applied for the first card in late October and you received your bonus in late January, you will have to wait until February 2 years later to apply for that card again.
- This is the time I would not follow 90 day rule. You can apply for the business card and then 30 days later apply for the personal card. Be mindful that you will have two minimum spends to meet, or possibly four if your spouse is also applying for both cards. Think ahead and make sure you can meet them all when deciding when to apply for the next card.
Apply for business and personal cards through this link to support my page and my content. It’ll take you to the personal link, if you’re looking for the business one scroll to the bottom and click on the black text where it says “Business Owner. Learn More”
