If you’re like me and you love traveling then you know how expensive it can be. The whole reason why I started churning credit cards and racking up points was so that I could travel more and spend less. I’ve racked up almost a million points across all different programs since I started but one of the best deals that’s still out there is the Southwest Companion Pass. The pass lets you designate a travel partner for up to two years and every time you fly on Southwest, they can fly too for free. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you paid for your ticket, or even how far you’re going, as long as there’s availability, your companion will fly for free.
I fly Southwest all the time and they’re one of my favorite airlines since they have low prices, good customer service and low fees. In order to hit companion status though, you need to accrue 110,000 qualifying points or fly 100 one-way trips. The latter is nearly impossible but racking up 110,000 points is a lot easier than you might think. Normally, when you sign up for airline credit cards, only a portion of the points will count towards status(or none at all), but with Southwest credit cards, all of the sign-up bonus points count towards status. Southwest/Chase’s official policy is that they don’t count but I did it anyways after reading countless success stories and it worked!
Qualifying for the Pass
Companion status must be achieved in a single calendar year so you’ll need to accrue all 110,000 points in the same year. And in order to maximize the benefit of the pass, the earlier in the year you achieve status the better, since it will be good for that year and the next full calendar year. So if you were able to hit 110,000 points in January of 2014, you could have companion status until December 2015, almost two full years!
Chase actually offers four variations of the Southwest card: a plus card, a premier card, a plus business card and a premier business card. Each of them offer a 50k sign-up bonus after spending $2,000 in 3 months. So if you’re interested in trying to get companion status, you should apply in early October 2013 for your first Southwest card. You don’t want to hit the $2,000 threshold until Jan. 2014 though. After about 90-95 days from the day you first apply, you can apply for your second SW chase card(so sometime in early Jan. 2014) and hit the spend limit on that card as soon as possible.
At this point, you should have around 104,000 points in your account: 50k from sign up bonus for card 1, 2k from spend on card 1, 50k from sign up bonus for card 2 and 2k from spend on card 2. All you need to do at this point is spend $6,000 and you’ll have your companion status. 6k is a lot though so you can try and use manufactured spending if you want to hit that number quicker. Here’s a timeline of events:
- Oct. 5, 2013 – Apply for Chase SW Plus card
- Oct. 5, 2013 – Dec. 31, 2013 – Spend $1,990 on the Chase SW Plus card – Point balance: 1,990
- Jan. 1, 2014 – Spend $10 on Chase SW Plus card in order to hit spending requirements – Point balance: 52,000
- Jan. 10, 2014 – Apply for Chase SW Premier card
- Jan. 10, 2014 – April 10, 2014 – Spend $2,000 on the Chase SW Premier card – Point balance: 104,000
- April 10, 2014 – on – Spend $6,000 on either card – Point balance: 110,000
110,000 Points Goes A Long Way
I think Southwest points are extremely valuable for a couple reasons. You can usually get a redemption rate of around 1.4 cents per point and there are no cancellation fees with the points. I usually book flights with points and if they have a sale before I fly, I’ll cancel my original itinerary and re-book at the lower price. You can even book a flight for someone else using your points.
The companion pass works with points too so your 110,000 points are really worth 220,000 points if you fly with a companion every time. That’s a value of $3,080 just for signing up for two credit cards! I think this is one of the best deals in the industry and although I only got to take advantage of it a couple times, it still saved me a lot of money.
Readers, what do you think about going for the Southwest Companion Pass? Is it worth the hassle for $3,000+?
-Harry @ PF Pro
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I think it sounds like a great deal. I would definitely go for it if I needed it!
Yea it’s a great deal, go for it.
Brilliant
Haha thanks.
Are you pretty happy with your rewards from your Southwest Card? I’m sort of tied to Delta at the moment but with mileage inflation and the fact that Southwest bought AirTran (I have family in Atlanta), I’m open to switching.
Hi Tara, I am very happy with my Southwest card to be honest. I fly SW a lot, I’m flying to Vegas on SW next weekend in fact. The prices are usually pretty low and they are just extremely flexible about everything: canceling/changing a reservation, baggage fees, etc.
Their points are pretty valuable too ~1.4 cents per point though I’m not sure if they’re as big over on the east coast/south. They are pretty much the best option for me in Socal though and I’ve even flown SW to NY and that worked out well.
Sign up for their 50k card and try it out! The spend req. is low at 2k in 3 months and although the plus card carries a $69 annual fee, you get a 3k point bonus on your 1st year anniversary. If you cancel the card after you get the points you won’t have to pay the second year AF either but you get to keep the 3k points plus whatever you have in your account. There’s really nothing to lose and no I do not work for Southwest haha
I cannot think of a way to justify the companion card. I only fly 2-3 times a year, and it’s always to visit friend who live far from me, so it’s just myself going. Is there a deal that works for single, non-frequent flyers? Right now I think my best deal is the cash back CostCo American Express card.
Yea although it is a great deal, it really isn’t or everyone. If you fly SW, you could just grab the SW Chase Plus card that comes with 50k pts(~$775 in wanna get away fares). Or I really like the cards like Chase Sapphire Preferred(40k sign up bonus) or Chase Ink Business(50k sign up bonus) since they let you redeem pts 1.2 cents to 1 point. So 50k in points would be worth $625 in travel credit and you can buy the ticket on any airline/company so no black out dates. Just buy the ticket and then apply the points as statement credit.
I think Barclay Arrival card is like this too 🙂
I’ve heard that Capital One Venture Card is the best if you fly different airlines. I do prefer SW but they don’t always fly to my destination. I’m usually on Frontier, American Airways, or SW.
Only problem with Capital One cards is they don’t have any halfway decent sign up bonuses. I think they had a good match bonus a year or two ago but that’s all that I can think of.