The golden ticket of travel hacking: the southwest companion pass. This benefit is coveted among the travel community because of its money saving potential. Who would pass up BOGO free airline tickets? Flying can be really expensive and sometimes make up more than half your budget! The companion pass is an instant 50% discount allowing you some stretch in your budget for more fun things, like excursions and fancy cocktails…
Say you have a family of four and you all want to fly to Orlando to visit Disney, With the companion pass, instead of having to pay for four tickets, you would only buy three and receive the fourth as your companion. Now imagine that both you and your partner had the companion pass, now you’re only paying for two tickets! Sounds way too good to be true right? If it’s such a great deal everyone would be doing it, wouldn’t they? Well it takes some strategic planning to get the companion pass and for a lot of people it is too intimidating. But we’re not like most people, are we?
There are a couple of important things to be aware of when it comes to earning the companion pass. 1.) Meeting the requirements 2.) Timing 3.)Credit history
- Meeting the requirements
The burning question I’m sure you’re asking right now is how do you actually earn the dang thing, right? Well, there are two ways to earn the pass. Either complete 100 qualifying one way flights, or earn 135,000 rapid rewards points in a calendar year. One option is definitely easier than the other! 135,000 points seems intimidating at first, however, you know that Southwest offers four different co-branded credit cards. Two personal, and two business. Granted, you’re only allowed one personal card at a time, and you can’t re-earn a sign up bonus if it hasn’t been at least 24 months since your last one for the same card. Never fear, you can apply for a business card and get 80,000 points after the minimum spend (this is the offer as of 1/11/23, details may have changed, always check current terms) alongside a personal card that earns 50,000 rapid rewards points. The sign up bonuses alone put you at 130,000 and since you earn at least 1pt per dollar for any category, you will get those last 5,000 points in no time.
The best part is–once you’ve earned the companion pass, you still get to redeem all 135,000 southwest rapid rewards points for flights! That’s a lot of free flights!*
*technically they still have to charge $5.60 per person in taxes due to federal regulations, but it’s still basically free in my humble, but most righteous opinion*
2. Timing
Once the companion pass is earned, it is valid for the remainder of the calendar year plus the following calendar year. So with some careful planning, it is totally possible to have the pass for almost two whole years! The pass can technically be earned at any point in the year, however, it would be most advantageous to earn it within the first few months of the year to maximize your time with the pass.
You want to be extra careful that all the points hit the account in the same year. For example, if you open a card in November and have three months to hit minimum spend, don’t meet the minimum spend until January. Meaning don’t make that last purchase until you are sure that your statement has closed and points won’t post until January. It would suck to accidentally have 50,000 bonus points post December 2022 when the rest of your points don’t hit until January 2023. Since they would be from different years, you couldn’t combine them to earn the pass. The SouthWest companion pass is always based on the CALENDAR YEAR! Caps lock intended.
3. Credit History
Just like most things in travel hacking the best things come to those willing to open credit cards. The trick with the companion pass, is that all the Southwest co-branded credit cards are through Chase bank.
For those who don’t know, Chase has an infamous rule called the 5/24 when it comes to card approvals. To limit their own personal liability as a bank, they won’t approve applications if you have opened five or more personal credit cards within the last 24 months. The five includes the application you are currently submitting through chase. So it’s really more like 4/24. My own plans to earn the pass at the beginning of 2023 were foiled because I didn’t plan out my card strategy early enough. In my defense, I wasn’t involved in the card churning game until 2022 so I had a year of previous cards opened for unaffiliated reasons held against me. I was working on a different card SUB at the beginning of 2024, but as of May I completed my qualifications and have the pass until 12/31/25!
Now this limit applies to primarily personal credit cards. However, most business cards do not count towards the 5/24. Getting a business credit card sounds more complicated than it is. If you wonder if you qualify just ask yourself if you have any side hacks or hobbies where you sell something. For example, this blog counts as business, and so does my etsy shop. Do you ever house sit for money? Congratulations, you run a business! You can simply apply with your personal social security number as a sole proprietor corporate structure. Just be honest with your revenue projections in the application in case they come back and ask for more details.
Trying to plan trips for me and the boy used to be scary because, well, the boy has different priorities and flights don’t always make the cut for him. He almost didn’t make it to my best friend’s wedding because he had to book last minute flights after I had already planned mine. Now with the pass I don’t have to worry because if I’m going, he can come for free as my companion as long as there is room on the flight! Now there’s one less reason for him to avoid my family reunion 😉
Booking with a companion is simple. You just book your primary ticket and then afterwards use the Southwest website/app to add your companion and pay the $5.60 tax. You must designate one companion on the account, and it can only be changed 3 times within the year, so chose wisely and take some amazing trips!