The Fastest Way to Earn the Southwest Companion Pass

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One of the highest badges of honor in the personal finance community is earning the Southwest Companion pass. Today we’re going to talk about the fastest way to earn it, and how to maximize the benefit.

Quick note: This method involves opening credit cards and qualifying for welcome offers. If you can’t handle credit responsibly, stay away from credit cards no matter how good the bonuses seem! Here are our golden rules of using plastic.

What is the Southwest Companion Pass?

It’s a perk that basically lets you take a “plus one” on all your Southwest flights for a full year. You just choose a designated friend or family member, and when you book a flight, they have the option to fly with you for only the cost of fees + taxes, which is usually just a few dollars.

There are a handful of airlines that offer “companion fares.” But here’s what makes the Southwest Companion pass stand out:

• Unlimited companion flights: Most airlines offer single-use passes for a buddy to fly for free. But the Southwest pass lets you use the companion perk as many times as you want until the pass expires. You could take a dozen trips. Or more!
• Current + calendar year: Once you earn the Southwest companion pass, it’s valid for the remainder of the current year plus the next full calendar year. For example, if you qualify in say March 2024, then the companion pass expires in December 2025. That’s 21 months of free companion travel!
• Can redeem on award flights: You can use the Southwest companion pass even if you book award travel. This means you can book a flight using points, and still take your companion for free. Basically, both of you get to fly for only the cost of minimal taxes and fees. It’s truly incredible.
• Includes international flights: Most Southwest flights are domestic, but they have opened up a few international routes (and Hawaii too) over the last couple years. The Companion pass works for all Southwest flights!

To get the most value out of a Southwest companion pass, you should try to qualify as early as you can within the calendar year. Ideally, you’ll want to also have a lot of travel planned within the following years so you can use the pass as much as possible. That’ll help you get the most bang for your buck!

How do you earn one?

To earn a Southwest companion pass, you either need to fly 100 one-way flights within a calendar year OR earn 135,000 qualifying Rapid Rewards points within a calendar year.

I don’t know about you, but flying 100 one-way flights inside of a year seems pretty ridiculous! I love travel but I’m unlikely to take that many trips. So really the only way for most people to qualify is to earn 135,000 rapid rewards points. But that also sounds daunting, right!?

At first glance, earning 135,000 points seems outlandish. But, with the help of welcome offers, you might be able to get there quicker than you think. Right now here is the welcome offer for the card_name: bonus_miles_full!

Accruing Rapid Rewards Points:

There are 2 main ways to accrue Southwest Rapid Rewards points.

First, you can book and fly on Southwest Airlines. Like any airline, purchasing flights and flying with them will earn you points. But, as you can imagine, this takes a ton of time and money to accrue the 135,000 points needed to qualify for a companion pass.

So the second (and fastest) way is to earn points by using a Southwest credit card (or two). You can earn qualifying points for both hitting the welcome offer benchmarks, plus via any regular spending you do on the credit card.

Credit Card Welcome Offers

Welcome offers for credit cards are by far the fastest way to boost your Rapid Rewards point balance. But, there are some qualification rules, as well as some guidelines to watch out for.

Personal credit cards: Right now there are 3 Southwest Rapid Rewards credit cards that have awesome welcome offers. Chase only allows you to have 1 personal Southwest card, and you’re not eligible if you’ve already received a Southwest welcome offer in the past 24 months.

Southwest Business credit cards: Chase also offers 2 business credit cards with Southwest Rapid Rewards bonus opportunities.

Unlike personal cards, there’s no rule that says you can’t have both a Business credit card and a Personal one from Southwest at the same time. Also, both personal cards and business cards can be linked to the same Rapid Rewards account, which allows you to accrue points across those two credit cards at the same time.

So if you are eligible to open a business card (it’s easier than you think – we’ll discuss in the next section below) then you can quite easily qualify for the companion pass by getting the welcome offer points alone. No need to book 100 flights. 

Can anyone open a SW Business card?

You might think that a business credit card would be off limits to you. But qualifying for a business credit card isn’t nearly as difficult as it may seem. You just need to have some kind of income outside of a 9-5 job. This could come from any kind of money making activity, like selling things on eBay, Etsy, or even Craigslist.

Independent income is really easy to come by these days. If you’ve got a side hustle or gig work, that could be considered income as an independent contractor. So you can open a business credit even if you don’t own and run a “traditional business.”

A quick note on applying for a business card: If you don’t have an LLC or legal business name, that’s OK! Just enter your personal name in the business name section, and your SSN in the Employer Identification Number (EIN) section. This is common for freelancers as well as people using credit cards for side hustles they’ve started.

Fastest Way to Earn a Southwest Companion Pass:

Remember, to earn the Southwest companion pass, you need to accrue 135,000 points within a calendar year. So you’ll want to start as early as possible in the year – and even apply for those credit cards during the Holidays the year before.

If you are eligible for both a personal AND a business card, can qualify for the companion pass based on welcome offers alone.

Remember: You’ll want to time all your points to start accruing in January at the earliest. We’ll look at a perfect timing example below.

Pro tip: You’ll want to make sure BOTH business and personal cards are linked to your same Rapid Rewards account. This way all the points you accrue across both cards will add together and make your balance bigger for qualification.

Example of “Perfect Timing”

Here’s a quick overview of how someone could earn the SW companion pass the fastest way possible, and also have access to the perk for the longest time possible:

November/December: Apply and get approved for the Southwest Personal and/or Southwest Business credit cards. Don’t use the cards just yet! Remember you want any and all points to start hitting your account in January!

December/January: Your first billing statement will close (and will include the annual fee). NOW is the time to start using your card. The goal is to reach the minimum spend requirements so that the welcome offer points apply in January!

January/February: Receive welcome bonuses for personal and business cards (plus regular 1 point per $1 spend and any other bonuses) and qualify for the companion pass.

The next 22 months: Fly as much as you can with your buddy! The companion pass will be valid for the remainder of the year in which you earn it, plus the entire following year. Now is the time to make memories on the cheap.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Here are some important things to know and other resources you might want to check out…

Can you have 2 Personal Southwest Credit Cards?

Nope. If you already have a personal Southwest credit card, you can’t open another personal one until the current account is closed.

That being said, you’re allowed to have a Southwest personal card, as well as a Southwest Business card. These can be linked to the same Rapid Rewards account which helps you accrue points faster.

Also, it’s important to know about the Chase 5/24 rule. Basically you can’t open more than 5 credit cards within 24 months, or Chase will decline your application. Never open too many credit cards within a short amount of time.

Can you change your dedicated companion?

Yes, but you can only make a companion change 3 times in a calendar year. It works great if you have 2-3 friends you want to take trips with. But the companion pass is not designed to take a different person each time you fly. Still, it’s nice to have at least some flexibility on this front.

Can another Rapid Rewards member transfer you points?

While it is possible for Rapid Rewards members to transfer points to each other, transferred points *do not count* towards the companion pass qualification. Plus, there is a cost to transfer those points too.

Also, transferring partner points doesn’t count towards the companion pass qualification either. So if you have a bunch of Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you cannot convert those and automatically get the companion pass.

Can you earn the companion pass without credit cards?

Without any credit card welcome offers, it would be really hard to qualify for the companion pass. You’d need to earn 135,000 points by booking and paying for Southwest flights.

The basic fare for Southwest (called Wanna Get Away) earns you 6 points for every $1 spent on flights. So, you’d need to spend $22,500 on flights to earn that goal of 135,000 points. (remember it all needs to be done within a calendar year!)

So unless you fly regularly for work, you’ll really want to take advantage of credit card welcome offers to qualify for the companion pass. Otherwise it may just be too difficult to achieve. 

Is the Southwest Companion Pass worth it?

Any perk or benefit is really only worth it if you actually use it!  So if you qualify for the companion pass and then don’t travel at all, it might not be worth the hassle.

But if you’ve got a lot of travel planned for the upcoming years (and Southwest has convenient service where you live and routes you want to fly) then you could easily snag thousands of dollars of free travel!

The Bottom Line:

The Southwest companion pass is one of the most valuable tools to reduce travel costs. And it’s relatively easy to qualify for it if you take advantage of the welcome offers for Southwest personal and/or business credit cards.

But, timing is really important to earn the pass, and to have it valid as long as possible. Earning a companion pass is more of an advanced credit card strategy that requires foresight and planning. If you have any issue handling credit responsibly, stay away from all credit card offers no matter how good the rewards seem!

_{*Advertiser Disclosure: How to Money has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. How to Money and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Lastly, the site does not include all card companies or all available card offers.}

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