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The Southwest Companion Pass is the holy grail of budget travel hacking. No other airline will let you easily earn buy one get one free airfare with so many ways to do it. This article will help you learn the three easiest ways to earn the Southwest Companion Pass, going into all the tricks to help you quickly earn the pass. It will also show you the best ways to strategically earn points through spend.
Related Story: See how I earned the Companion Pass from June 2022-December 2023!
The Southwest Companion Pass gives the Southwest account holder unlimited buy one get one Southwest flights for the entire year the Companion Pass is earned and the following year. Companion Pass flights can be booked with cash or points with no blackout dates. Your companion pass does not cover taxes and fees, which start at $5.60 and you can change your companion up to three times a year.
The fastest and most efficient way to earn the Southwest Companion Pass is by utilizing Southwest credit cards for the sign-up bonus. Southwest partners with Chase, which means that you need to be under 5/24 to apply. This applies to both Chase’s business and personal cards.
Secondly, you can only elect one companion at a time and can only change your companion three times a year. Let’s say you usually travel with your spouse. Your spouse is your companion but you want to go on a trip with your mom. You can switch your companion from your spouse to your mom and then back to your spouse for two of your three changes.
Finally, timing is everything. You have between January 1 and December 31 each year to earn all your 135,000 points towards your Companion Pass – every January your point balance towards the pass resets.
Fortunately, your Companion Pass starts the moment you earn it in that calendar year for the remainder of that year and the entirety of the following year. The best thing to do is try to have your sign-up bonus hit as close to the start of a new year as possible to have your pass the longest.
Be sure to check out this article for more details on earning the pass.
There are many ways to earn the Companion Pass and within the options, there is no right way to do it. Some methods are frankly faster at earning the Pass than others. You can use the tricks listed in any sort of combination, just so long as you earn 135,000 Southwest points.
It’s important to note that you now need 135,000 Southwest points to earn your pass, but you can earn 10,000 of those points just by having a Southwest credit card. So most of these scenarios will only require an additional 125,000 points.
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The double-dip method is a favorite for those looking to earn the Pass quickly. Oftentimes if you time your sign-up bonus with Southwest card promotions you can earn your Pass with very little spending requirements and just use your two card bonuses.
Don’t think you qualify for a business card? Think again. There are many ways to qualify for a business card, even just selling on Facebook Marketplace!
Earning the bonuses on both a business and personal card should almost always put you over 135,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards necessary to earn the Pass.
If you don’t want to sign-up for two cards or can’t earn a business card you can still easily earn your Companion Pass by signing up for a personal (or business) credit card and strategically spend your way to the Pass. Most people will elect to sign-up for a personal card with this approach.
If you decide to only sign-up for one card. you’ll likely need to be more strategic about when you sign-up for that card. You’ll want to ensure you’re receiving a higher-than-normal sign-up bonus to get you closer to the Pass.
That means that signing up for the card at its standard 50,000-point bonus is’nt the best way to do it. Usually in the fall Southwest will increase their bonus in late fall, which will be the right time to get the card. You’ll see a bonus between 75,000-100,000 points, which is when it’s time to apply.
You can always download the Travel Freely app and they’ll let you know when there is an increased bonus on the Southwest cards!
From there, you’ll need to strategically spend your way towards the remainder of your 125,000 points (remember, your card earns you 10,000). You can find more on the ways to strategically spend below.
Southwest offers a variety of ways to earn the Pass because they include their travel partner earnings as points towards the pass, too. One of the best hacks to earning the Pass with partners is by utilizing SouthwestHotels.com. Southwest Hotels is a hotel booking platform that utilizes Booking.com for all its room rates. The most important feature of Southwest Hotels towards your Companion Pass is that all the “bonus” points count. Some hotels offer as many as 10,000 points a night and you can even buy your way towards earning more points that also count towards your pass.
Travel Tip! I’ve found that longer stays don’t qualify for as many points as shorter ones. It’s best to use this through smaller hotel stays throughout a trip to ensure you can earn the 125,000 points quickly.
If you already have a Southwest card, all referral points earned count towards your Companion Pass. Currently, your referrals can earn you up to 100,000 points in one year. Meaning, that if you refer five people you’ll earn the maximum amount of referral points. By adding just one or two hotel bookings or Rocketmiles purchase, you can easily earn the Southwest Companion Pass.
The Southwest card earnings are not great and you shouldn’t utilize the card at a 1x to the Pass. Instead, you should be prioritizing high-earning methods that will get you to the Pass quickly.
One of the best strategies for spend is flying Business Select. Business Select gives you 12x on your flight price. This is huge and super beneficial because it reduces your necessary spending substantially from the 1x offered on most purchases on your Southwest card.
Utilizing the Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping portal can help you earn huge amounts of points towards your pass through your everyday spending. You can do this with all your online shopping but you can also elect for curbside pickup for items you need quickly.
Southwest Hotels has got to be one of the most underrated tools to earn the Companion Pass. You can earn tens of thousands of points quickly for sometimes very little spending required. It’s best to play around with dates to find the best rates and it’s almost always worth the additional $40 for 5,000 more points or so.
Remember that booking through Southwest Hotels is booking through a third-party, so don’t stay at hotels you are looking to earn status nights at. Additionally, the person who booked the room’s name must match the one earning the pass, so be sure the room name, card name, and account name all match to earn the points.
Like Southwest Hotels, RocketMiles can be a good tool to use when you need large amounts of Southwest Points quickly. You can easily earn tens of thousands of points on a weeklong stay. If you are a hotel free agent, this is also a great tool to earn additional points for airlines, too. Just be sure to always compare prices.
RocketMiles is included in my guide to traveling without credit cards.
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