The Southwest Companion Pass: Buy One Ticket Get One Free!

This is a post geared towards prospective credit card churners who are under Chase's 5/24 rule. If you aren't sure what the 5/42 rule is, you can read about it here: Chase 5/24 Rule

You'll want to be at 3/42 or lower to take advantage of this method of earning the Southwest Companion Pass because it will require you to open two new Chase cards. These cards are the Southwest Premier and the Southwest Plus.

The Southwest Premier is publicly available on Chase's website but you should not use that link because the current bonus is only 40,000 points. We want a bonus of 50,000 bonus points. And the Southwest Plus is not publicly available on Chase's website. So the method we'll want to use to apply for these two cards are referral links. Be absolutely sure the referral link you apply through offers a 50,000 point bonus. You'll understand why in a bit.

The best place to apply for these cards through referral links is on reddit.com/r/churning. They have referral links for just about any credit card thats worth churning. There is also a lot of information on that subreddit about churning in general so I do recommend you stick around and read what they have over there as well.

The Southwest Companion Pass allows you one free ticket for every ticket you purchase for yourself. The limit is one free ticket per trip but you can use it on as many trips as you'd like for as long as you have the pass. This makes the Companion Pass a really good deal if you have a spouse or significant other you plan on bringing with you or even a family or friend (but do keep in mind you are limited to 3 different companions in a single calendar year).

To get the Companion Pass, you'll need to accrue 110,000 Southwest Points in a single calendar year. Points earned from signup bonuses and credit card spending will count towards the total, but purchasing points outright will not count. This is why its important to get the two cards with the 50,000 signup bonuses so you can minimize how much you'll need to spend on your credit card.

The two cards mentioned above, the Southwest Premier and the Southwest Plus, both have signup bonuses of 50,000 points for spending $2,000 in a 3 month period (assuming you use the reddit.com/r/churning referral links). This means that after completing the minimum spend on both cards you'll have at least 104,000 points. Only 6,000 to go! The quickest way to get those 6,000 would be via Manufactured Spending.

One very important consideration with the Southwest Companion Pass is that you get the pass for the year you earned the 110,000 points, plus the following year. So the earlier in the year you can accrue those points, the longer you have the pass. In fact, I've read stories of people who applied for the card in December and completed all of the spending requirements in their January billing cycle. This means they effectively have the pass for almost 2 full years.

A common question people will ask is whether they get to keep the 110,000 points. The answer is yes! And those 110,000 points are worth about $1,100 dollars so you can get two round trips out of it if you are savvy.

Thanks for reading,
Rybos

Chase 5/24 Rule

In 2016, Chase introduced what the credit card churning community calls the 5/24 rule. What it boils down to is Chase will only allow an individual to open 5 credit cards in a 24 month period. You'll want to keep the 5/24 rule in mind if you're planning on applying for a credit card through Chase because it can be the difference between getting approved or denied for a credit card. If you haven't received a new credit card within the last 24 months, you would be in the clear to open 5 credit cards with Chase. But also keep in mind that Chase does not approve more than 2 cards in a 30 day period. There are also some data points to suggest that Chase will not extend you a combined credit limit that is greater than half your annual income. So if you make say, $60,000/year, there is a chance that Chase will deny you more credit cards if your credit limit with them is already $30,000 or greater. The total credit limit rule is not a hard and fast one and seems to vary a bit from person to person but its good to keep in mind.

There are cards that do and don't count towards 5/24. Below is the list of known cards that fall into either of these categories.

Cards that fall under and count towards Chase's 5/24 rule:

• Cards from any other credit card lender (Citi, American Express etc.)
• Chase Sapphire Cards
• Chase Freedom Cards
• Chase Ink Cards
• Chase Southwest Cards
• Chase United Cards
• Chase Marriott Personal Card (all data points seem to suggest the business Marriott is exempt from 5/24)
• Chase Slate

Cards that do not fall under under and count towards Chase's 5/24 rule:

• Chase Hyatt Card
• Chase IHG Card
• Chase Ritz-Carlton Card
• Chase Marriott Business Card

If you don't see a card that falls under either of these lists, its because there aren't enough data points for it.

Thanks for reading,

Rybos

Earnhoney: The only site worth watching videos on

Today we'll talk about Earnhoney.com, which is in my opinion the only site worth watching videos on because of the comparatively high payouts.

Earnhoney is a website a lot like Swagbucks, but with less offers. Earnhoney has surveys, signup offers, and video playlists just like Swagbucks does. And the Earnhoney surveys actually have higher payouts but they are not prescreened. This means you might click through ten or more survey offers before you find one that you actually qualify for. The signup offers on Earnhoney are almost always also on the Swagbucks website and the Swagbucks offer will payout slightly more. Thus far it might seem like Earnhoney is a lower quality, lower-paying version of Swagbucks. But when it comes to the video playlists, Earnhoney beats out Swagbucks by a wide margin. This is because the payouts are much, much higher than Swagbucks.

When you visit Earnhoney, click on either the MatchedCars playlist or the TVGlee playlist. These will payout roughly $0.30/hour (you are lucky to get $0.10/hour on Swagbucks). That doesn't sound like much but it can add up if you stream these playlists on several devices at once. I currently stream the MatchedCars playlist on my laptop when I'm not using it (at night and while I'm at work during the day) and I stream TVGlee on my kindle. This consistently earns me about $3-5/day. You could earn a bit more if you have more devices and stream the other playlists.

Theres one thing you'll want to keep in mind when you're running the Earnhoney playlists: You'll want to stick with one video playlist per device. This is because you'll only get credited for the in-focus internet tab. So if you have two tabs open, each streaming one playlist, you'll only get credited for one. This is why I use two devices.

Thanks for reading,
Rybos