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