Complete Guide to Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Program
Happy New Year! Welcome 2020! Today I will talk about the airline I used the most both last year and definitely in 2020.
Southwest Airlines, some people hate it, but most people love it, including me! With its birth on 15th March 1967, it has grown to be one of the largest airlines in the USA. It’s also served the most number of passengers beating the “big 3” (American, Delta and United) individually.
Today, the airline serves 89 U.S. destinations and has routes to Mexico, Central America and Caribbean countries like Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, Cayman Islands and more. The airline has a major presence in cities such as Baltimore-Washington D.C, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Denver and more. The secret to their success at least financially is that all their planes are the same, the Boeing 737, which keeps maintenance costs low and they can buy in bulk. They have been profitable for 44 years in a row, which means you can count on them!
The airlines is generally very customer friendly as it doesn’t have hidden charges (“transfarency”) such as checked bags (2 are allowed for free) and zone boarding fees although they have a “business” class which is minor compared to the Big 3 airlines.
To make use of an airline, it is always useful to sign up for their individual rewards program and Southwest is no different. In this article we are going to discuss their rewards program and how to use it for your advantage.
What are Rapid Reward points and how do you get them?
Rapid Reward points are like a currency which build up when you generally show loyalty to Southwest or their partners and affiliates who they have deals with. They don’t expire as of October 2019. And how do you earn them? Well it sounds obvious but flying is the main way, but their are other ways which can be extremely useful if you were going to pay for something else (rentals, hotels etc) anyway. And then there is credit cards, which we will get into briefly, but expect a full article on those later on.
Flying
The number of points per flight depends on the price and class of the ticket, but also your status level within the Rapid Rewards program. The three types of classes are “Wanna Get Away”, “Anytime”, “Business Select”. In that order the number of points per dollar increases. See below for how much each class earns depending on which level you are in the status tier (we will talk about that at the end)
| Status level | Wanna Get Away | Anytime | Business Select |
| Basic | x6 points/$ | x10 points/$ | x12 points/$ |
| A List (25% more) | x7.5 points/$ | x12.5 points/$ | x15 points/$ |
| A-List Preferred (100% more) | x12 points/$ | x20 points/$ | x24 points/$ |
All classes of payment include two free checked in luggage up to 50 pounds each, no fee for changing tickets and travel funds for up to 12 months if you cancel your ticket. The Anytime class allows you to get a refund to the original method of payment (card) and Business Select allows you to also use the priority lane at the Security checkpoint, and guarantees you a boarding position in the first 15 spaces (A1-A15).
Be sure to always put in your unique Rapid Rewards Member number when you pay for your flight or if you forget you can always do it at Check In. With their partners, hotels, car rentals and others, you can generally do this at the counter of these businesses.
Unfortunately Southwest doesn’t have airline partners like the Big 3 where you can transfer points or earn Rapid Rewards on other airlines that may go internationally.
Rapid Rewards Centre
The Rapid Rewards Centre is where you can see how many points you have as well as give you more information about the tier system and how to earn as we talked about previously. One thing I like is the ease of gifting points to family and friends or simply transferring points.
Lastly you can see tabs such as partners and promotions. Promotions are generally not that useful, the promotions that I have seen have been rewarding you an extra 25% points after meeting a minimum through credit card spending (which is high!) in a set time. The partners are a good way to get small amount of points here and there (dining) or get a really big number through hotels and other partners.
Partners
Hotels
One way I boosted my number of points was through hotel partners. I stayed at several hotels in 2019 for work and for when family visit and I needed the extra space. Now there is a difference between Southwest Hotels and World Of Hyatt for example. Southwest Hotels are select hotels of different brands that use booking.com as 3rd party and through some sort of relationship give you points for the business you do with their new affiliated partners. An example is below:
As you can see there are 2 hotels here which have different prices (depending on their quality) but you can see that one is offering 4,000 points for the trip compared to 627 points as an incentive to book. To put it simply, likely Ramada Plaza has given Southwest an incentive to promote their hotel to Southwest customers, and therefore Southwest has offered a decent amount of points for a trip you would have made anyway hoping you will give Ramada business.
This was my general tactic for most of 2019, usually I avoid hotels if I can and try Airbnb as it’s much more affordable but when you have family (including very small or very old members) a hotel may be more convenient. Remember the 3 rules of Penny Pinching!
This method is far superior than the general partners as you can get more points with deals like the 4,000 points, whereas with Hyatt you may only get 600 points per stay after providing your Rapid Rewards number.
Rental Cars and “Experiences”
Other partners are rental cars, which if you are going to travel somewhere and need a rental car (for example when I go to Puerto Rico), I can link it with my Rapid Rewards number. However, something to be aware of is that you may get better deals elsewhere. For example, with my Chase Sapphire Reserve, I get Emerald Status with National, which I think is of better value. Below are the car rentals that participate.
Another cool thing is the “experiences” tab. This really depends on your destination but if you find something you like you can get 1 Rapid Reward point for every dollar spent. This may not be such a great reward, but if there is an experience you like and there’s no cheaper alternative where you can get some reward out of it, then it may help. I looked up things to do Puerto Rico and they were limited, but you can get an idea of what to expect.
Dining
Next are the Dining and Shopping Partners. Now one thing to know about them is that every Airline has this! So it really depends on which airline you want to earn points with. I travel with Southwest more frequently than the Big 3, so I’m sticking with them for now, but if you want to earn American Miles you can earn miles through their Dining partner program.
With Southwest (and I assume others) it is very simple, sign up link your credit card with the account, and when you use that card at the establishment, Southwest Dining partner gets a notification and gives you points. Below shows how you can search by zip code or city and find restaurants that participate in this program.
As you can see below it is very simple within a few days the points post to your account.
As you can see I haven’t dined in a while, but when picking restaurants to try out, I’ll usually give this Dining program a quick search. Other ones I check out are the Uber Visa offers which will credit me some Uber credits which are discussed in this previous post.
Shopping
The other partner to consider is the Southwest Shopping portal. This is similar to Rakuten (formerly Ebates), where you can click a link to a brand’s website and start shopping and you can earn anywhere from 1 point per dollar to 5 points per dollar (even more). Note that these websites usually only allow you to go with one portal at a time, so you have to pick wisely which portal you want to use to “redirect” you to the store you want to buy from. I always use a website called cashbackmonitor.com. Let’s demonstrate with an example.
Cole Haan has struck up a deal with Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping and therefore customers are being offered 2 points per dollar to shop with Cole Haan provided they click through the link Southwest has provided. Now if we look at cashbackmonitor.com, we can see below that American AAdvantage are offering 3 miles per dollar instead of Southwest’s 2 miles. We can also see that Rakuten is only offering 1.5% in cash back. The decision is yours to which shopping portal you want to go through, some people prefer cashback, others prefer miles/points and with certain airlines. I always recommend waiting for the right moment, whether that be a large cash back off on Rakuten or a deal where 6 miles/dollar are offered. Sometimes there is a deal on the store’s website which may time with a bad deal on cashback monitor (like 1% or 1 point per dollar) but the store sale is so good you should purchase it anyway. It’s all about using your best judgement.
Buying Rapid Rewards points
You can buy Rapid Rewards points and also other airline miles/points, but I don’t advise it. Unless you are in desperate need for miles before a certain deadline you probably aren’t getting your money’s worth.
Transferring points to Rapid Rewards
Two credit cards offer transfer of points to Rapid Rewards: Chase Ultimate Rewards® and Diners club.
If you earn Chase Ultimate Rewards® from a their credit card, you can transfer a minimum of 1,000 points, and after that a multiple of 100 to Southwest Rapid Rewards at a 1:1 ratio. I have not done this personally but the process is very easy as described by other bloggers and thanks to myChase credit cards, readily available.
Diners Club I have far less knowledge about but it is understood that you can convert Diners Club Rewards points to Rapid Rewards points at a rate of 1.34 Diners Club points to one Rapid Rewards point, with a minimum transfer of 6,719 points.
Credit Cards
There are 3 Southwest Credit Cards, all of which can earn you points through purchases (separate to the points earned after flights and the other methods above). These then get transferred to your linked Southwest Rapid Rewards Account. All 3 have a similar sign up bonus when you spend a minimum amount in a set time. I will discuss the 3 cards in a separate post and which one is best for which type of traveller. But know that this is the best way to get an initial injection of points.
Redeeming points
Points are redeemable for flights, hotels, rental cars, gift cards and more.
To book flights on Southwest, you simply book a flight as you would normally do but select points instead of dollars. Even if you pick dollars by mistake you should be able to convert to points fairly easily as a currency. Generally this is the best redemption method. You can book international flights (which are not covered by Southwest) but these are generally not a good use of points as Southwest has no affiliation with them, you are better off using another Airline like Delta, United and American as they have partnerships due to their respective alliances.
You can use the points for hotels and rental cars but the amount can vary depending on location, value of hotel/car and supply/demand. To do this you go through the travel portal pictured above by selecting the Rapid Rewards option at the top. Generally these redemptions are ok, but you get real value out of the flights through Southwest in my opinion.
Lastly you can get gift cards but the redemption value is so poor I wouldn’t recommend it at all.
Rapid Rewards Tier System
As discussed when earning points there are 3 levels to the status system. Basic, A-List, A-List Preferred. Singing up for the basic level is free, and you can earn points to reach the next level A-List, which you can monitor on your account home page. Aside from the earning increase as discussed previously 25% and 100% for A-List and A-List preferred respectively, other perks are priority check in and boarding, free standby and access to priority lanes during security, an a dedicated phone line. The only difference between A-List and A-List Preferred is the free wifi on the plane for A-List Preferred members.
How do you get to A-List and A-List Preferred?
| A-List | A-LIst Preferred | |
| Qualifying Flights flown | 25 | 50 |
| Points earned | 35,000 | 70,000 |
The caveat is that the flights have to be qualifying, meaning for A to B with B being your final destination. No additional flights from flyovers count. So if you go to Baltimore from Chicago via Cleveland it may be 2 flights, but its 1 qualifying flight.
The other caveat is the type of points earned. Through purchasing tickets for southwest flights or by earning qualifying points through spending with a Southwest Credit card. Other methods like through shopping,dining or hotels do NOT count. This is why you could earn Companion Pass very easily, but getting to A-List can be much harder, if you don’t actually fly much.
Companion Pass
The Southwest Companion Pass is my proudest achievement so far in my early travel blog life. As soon as you earn it you have the remainder of the calendar year and the following year to use it and it allows you to assign a Companion to your reservation meaning they get a free flight (after paying a $5.60 tax). To get this you need to fly 100 qualifying flights as above or cross 110,000 points which include points from credit card sign ups and hotel partners. I’ll go into more detail how I earned this in a more detailed post.
How does the Penny Pinching Doc use this program?
This is my most used rewards program just simply because of where I live and where I can travel (domestically for now). I keep an eye on my account every other week and I heavily used the credit card sign up and hotel offers to boost my points to enable me to get the Companion pass and A-List Preferred status. I hope some of these tips can help you make this goal easier. Remember if you are traveling occasionally do not aim for A-List or a higher status and simply enjoy getting the points through some of the tips mentioned. If you are chasing a higher status or a Companion pass I will gdedicate a post on how I did this with as few flights and spending as I could.
Happy New Year once again Penny Pinchers!
Featured photo by Owen Lystrup on Unsplash