How to get the Southwest Companion Pass as soon as possible in January
Good morning Penny Pinchers!
Recently, we talked about the Southwest Priority Credit Card, which is the Airline’s elite credit card with lots of perks for its traveler. At the end of the post, we mentioned how that card can be great for kick starting your journey to obtaining the Southwest Companion Pass! In this post I am going to talk about how I earned mine in just 3-4 months (I could have done it sooner with these tips but that would involve drastically changing my trips etc). So let’s begin!
What is the Southwest Companion Pass?
The Companion Pass allows you to add a “companion” for free on any of your Southwest Airline reservations (provided there is still a seat available). You will need to pay the taxes and fees (usually $5.60 each segment), though. What makes this even more valuable is that it can be applied to a paid ticket (using actual dollars to pay for the flight) or an Award ticket (using points). This means if you have stacked up on points, you can use these points to pay for your ticket. One tactic that I will use is that all the points I have racked up from TRYING to obtain the Companion pass can then be used, essentially meaning I won’t pay (except fees) for any travel for myself and I can add a companion of my choosing (you can only change 3 times).
This is great because it can also be used on mainland flights, Hawaii flights and international flights (the fees may be higher though).
As mentioned above, you can change your companion up to three times a year, something that I utilized during the year of 2019 to help family when they visited and friends from work. This means in total you can have 4 companions in a calendar year. Remember though, that if you switch back and forth between 2 companions, each change counts as one of the three, regardless of previous allocation.
Another great tactic that I use with the Companion Pass is I buy the tickets early, and can always cancel or change the ticket (although you have to call a customer representative on the phone instead of online. That means you can lock in the price early and then adjust the timing later (remember the origin and destination have to remain the same).
Timing and qualifying
The pass is valid for the year that you obtain it as well the following year, meaning there is a possibility of up to 2 years worth of having the pass. It is also worth mentioning that getting the bonus from a credit card too soon can mean you miss it entirely, because on the 1st January the tally of points accrued expire from the previous year. So this year it was increased to 125,000, but for me it was 110,000 points that needed to be earned to qualify for the pass. Had I got my credit card sign up bonus in December 2018 instead of January 2019, I would have lost out on the 60,000 points which were meant to be the starting block for 2019. This means timing your credit card spending to meet the minimum and then subsequently receiving the points as part of the offer are paramount.
It is also important to note that certain earned points qualify and some don’t. Points from flights, partners and credit cards generally qualify.
“Companion Pass Qualifying Points are earned from your revenue flights booked through Southwest Airlines, your points earned by making purchases with a Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Card, and your base points earned from Rapid Rewards partners.”
There are important exceptions though. Purchasing points does not count and any transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards will not count. So points earned on regular purchases as well as Chase credit card bonuses won’t count when eventually transferred to Southwest.
So, now that you know what does and doesn’t count to the accumulation of points to the pass, how can we maximize it to our advantage. Let’s begin!
Credit cards
We talked extensively in the last post about the Southwest Priority Credit card and how I used it maximize the sign on bonus to start the journey.
In summary, whenever you open up any credit card, getting the sign up bonus is key. If you can plan your finances and the category of expenses that you know you will be spending in the near future, then you can be smart about when to use your new Southwest credit card and not just spend everything on the new card (as other credit cards may be better for certain purchases, like the Chase Sapphire Reserve).
There are 3 personal Southwest credit cards, all offer a limited-time bonus of up to 75,000 points but in the tiered format; 40,000 points after spending $1,000 on purchases in the first three months of having the card, and an additional 35,000 points after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first six months. There are also 2 business credit cards, Premier and Performance Business cards which offer sign up bonuses (60,000 after spending $3000 and 70,000 after spending $5000 respectively).
You can also open a personal and a business credit card at the same time, and both bonuses apply (and therefore cross the threshold needed for a companion pass).
This is not what I did as I only wanted 1 credit card and I used the card for non travel expenses (such as bills, exam fees and “personal” categories) and I used other means to get from 60,000 to 110,000 once I hit the sign up bonus.
Flying
The obvious method would be to fly! To earn 125,000 qualifying points, you’d need to spend at least $20,833 on Wanna Get Away fares, or $10,417 on Business Select fares (see my article on the Rewards Program as to how each ticket gives you points for the type of fare you have). Note this is different to additional points that you could get if you also used your Southwest Credit card, so if you used your Southwest Credit card and spent the $20,833, you would also get under 42,000 points through credit card spending (2 points for every dollar). Like I said however, other credit cards may get you a better return, and also $20,000 is a lot of money unless you are expensing to to your business or your employer.
I personally did not use my credit card for flights, but the flights that I have travelled on, have contributed to the companion pass qualification. I do not think that this was much however, as I generally bought these tickets on sale and they would be the “Wanna Get Away” class of tickets.
If you did want to combine the Southwest Credit card and spent $6,000 on Wanna Get Away fares, you’d have the following:
- Sign-up bonus (plus earnings from minimum spend): 75,000 points
- Flying: 36,000 points ($6,000 x 6 points per dollar on Wanna Get Away fares)
- Southwest airfare purchases on the card: 12,000 points ($6,000 x 2 points per dollar)
This would earn you 123,000 points and 2,000 more points would qualify you for the Companion Pass. Remember that the points from the credit card bonus and spending will only appear after the monthly statement, which is where many people have made mistakes (such as having them post in December instead of January).
Partners
Another method of accumulating points is through Southwest partners. You can see how through a number of methods you can obtain points which are Companion Pass qualifying such as hotels, opinions, flights and through the credit card as mentioned previously.
One tactic I used was the Southwest hotels part. I had several places I visited last year with family. I am much more willing to try AirBNB but for my older parents they still prefer hotels. Although I have recently started using Hotel reward programs, for me being loyal to one program doesn’t matter so much yet. So when I visited a city or area I would go through Southwest hotels. Let’s look at an example:
Now as you can see above, 13th May to the 15th May in downtown Chicago would cost you $592, and you would earn 5,000 points. For an expense you were already going to make, you can earn an additional 5,000 points. But is this worth it? Southwest use Booking.com to help them find their hotels. Let’s have a look at Hyatt Centric Chicago Magnificent Mile and what they are offering on their website.
So the cheapest deal is $293 per night, which comes to $586 in total. So for an extra 6 dollars you can get 5,000 points, which is worth around $75 (and precious more if you are aiming for the Companion Pass) if considering the value of 1 point being worth 1.5 cents (I’ll explain who I use for calculating these valuations).
So you can see how if you are going to a big city with plenty of hotel options, you can have a wide range of options and potentially get points in addition to a stay which you would have purchased anyway!
Above you can see that for those same dates, you also have another competitor which is also offering points and for a cheaper night. For those decisions you will have to use your judgement. But you can see how through hotel stays and with enough time (I don’t think you will get a lot options last minute offering thousands of Southwest points or on busy periods like 4th July) you can get a lot of options to score extra points.
This same sort of principle can also be applied to car rentals but I have personally never looked into this as I have seen the reward of points to not be as significant.
As you can see above, for 1-2 days I would be limiting myself to Hertz for a payout of 600 points, which I personally don’t think is worth it, especially when I have an Emerald status with National thanks to my Chase Sapphire Reserve.
When it comes to shopping, I personally haven’t tried it but other blogs state that through the shopping portal it is also possible to earn companion points that way.
How did The Penny Pinching Doc do it?
In this article I have outlined how I earned the Companion Pass within 3 months of applying in January 2019. I had planned my finances to hit the credit card spending threshold without spending excessively and reached my halfway target soon after. I then counted on my flights (which only contributed a small amount) and hotel stays booked through the Southwest Hotel portal to rely on increments of 5,000-10,000 points for qualifying hotel stays, which would have been required anyway for family reasons or because it would have been reimbursed anyway. Through these methods I was able to get the Companion Pass quickly and have been utilizing it ever since to take family members and friends on weekend trips for the half the price!
Hope this was helpful for those contemplating targeting the Companion Pass this year!
Have great Saturday!