Southwest Credit Card 30,000 Point & Companion Pass Offer
This offer has ended
A reminder that there is only a few days left to take advantage of this deal. If you were considering it then you will want to make a decision over the next couple of days. Be sure to read my article about who this offer is a good fit for.
Many people think the Companion Pass from Southwest is the best travel deal out there. It usually takes earning 110,000 Rapid Rewards points in the same year or taking a ton of flights to get it. Most people accomplish this by signing up for 2 Southwest credit cards and doing a ton of spend on them. Southwest and Chase just made the process a whole lot easier.
RELATED: Southwest Companion Pass Tips & Tricks, All You Need To Know
Details of the Offer
This offer has ended
Here are the details of the Chase Southwest Plus card offer:
- Earn 30,000 Rapid Rewards points and a Companion Pass good until 12/31/19.
- You must spend $4,000 within the first 3 months of having the card
- The $69 annual fee is NOT waived the first year
- Offer expires 2/11/19
That is the good stuff here is the bad stuff:
- The Chase 5/24 rule applies
- You can not receive the offer if you currently have another Southwest personal card
- You can not receive the offer if you have received a personal Southwest credit card bonus in the last 24 months.
- This companion pass is only good until the end of 2019. If you earn it the old fashioned way it can be good for up to 2 years which is something to consider.
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Companion Pass
Some might not understand why this is a great deal because they don’t know what a Companion Pass is. When you have a companion pass you can designate someone to fly for free with you on every Southwest flight. This includes cash flights or award flights (which you will have 34,000 miles for because of this offer). All you need to do is pay the $11.20 taxes in fees roundtrip for domestic flights and $100 or so for international flights.
You can change your designated companion up to 3 times per year not including your first designation. You must complete all companion designated flights before you can change it though. So if you have a flight scheduled for April and then another one for May, with a different companion, you have to finish the April flight before changing your companion. But you can book your ticket for the May flight and as long as there is one seat open your companion flies free. No matter the cost of the ticket!
Should You Shoot For The Two Year Plan?
It is possible to get the companion pass for almost 24 months if you time it right. If you were to get the 60,000 point Southwest Premier Business Card and a 60,000 point Personal Southwest card (which those offers just ended) in a quick time span then you can get the companion pass via the regular route. That would be good for the rest of the year you earn it plus the next calendar year. If you can not get a business card then this option is pretty much off the table for you.
The two things to consider with this are that it takes 2 cards and $15,000 in spend to earn it that way. $12,000 for the personal card and $3,000 for the business card. The ideal time to sign up for the cards is December and then complete the minimum spend in January. This gets you the companion pass for essentially 24 months. Many people can’t hit that level of spend quickly. It also means waiting until the end of this year to do it. It will probably be a few months before any 60,000 point personal offers return which would diminish the value of doing it this year.
I think which option works best for you depends on your personal situation but I wanted to lay out the options for you. Also if you have a 2 player system in place and both are under 5/24 you could have one take this offer now and the other shoot for the 2 year plan in December. That would get you the companion pass for 3 years, something to consider.
Conclusion
This is a pretty great offer, especially for families. If Southwest flies out of your airport, you often fly with a family member or friend, and you meet the bonus criteria you should seriously consider this offer.
The offer is also available on the Chase Southwest Premier card and Chase Southwest Priority card, which offers good value for frequent Southwest fliers. The Chase Southwest Plus version offers the best value in my opinion because of it’s low annual fee.
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If you also get a business card, can you use the 30000 earned on the personal to work toward adding a second year to your companion pass?
Yes that could work. You would need to come up with around 13,000 more points by the end of the year but entirely possible.
Do you get the Companion Pass as soon as approved or only after hitting the spending requirement?
The way I read the terms it is after the spending is complete.
Do you think I could get my companion pass by 2/15 if we hurried up here. We have a flight 2/16. We already have one companion pass.
If you could complete the 4K in spend in time it would depend on when the statement cuts. You can ask Chase to move the dates but that can take a month. I have no way of knowing for sure and it would be cutting it close. It may be possible since it is more than 30 days to those dates though.
We have $4000 that we were going to put on another card we are waiting for Capital One Venture that we could put on this one. Thanks, it might be worth a try we also have a SW flight booked for 4/6 that we could use another companion pass. My husband is under 5/24 and could get it. TY
Going to try. If I could use another CP for both trips, will save 36,000 miles.
Worth it for sure if you have that many SW flights booked – good luck!
DP: I was approved for a Chase Southwest Plus on 11/20/18, on a rush to get 50k point/$2000 spent for a Companion Pass by the end of the 2018 since I earned 60K earlier this year through last year California Companion Pass Promotion. Spent requirement met by 12/12/18. System show my next payment due date would be 01/16/19 so I was afraid I couldn’t make it. Secure messaged them to see if they could move the due date earlier or expedite the point deposit so I could use it for holiday. They SM back said they couldn’t more the date because the account is too new. But they also said my point will be deposit when statement closed on 12/19/18 if requirements met (so statement open 11/20/18 close 12/19/18). So I checked on 12/20/18 found 50k points deposited, and my Southwest account shows the new Companion Pass earned. :). Gook luck LK!
what if I just signed up for the card yesterday? Any way to get in on this?
You can reach out to them via secure message. They have done matches in the past but I am not sure if they will do it for this or not. Worth a try if you like this offer better.
So if I cancel my current SW card (which i’ve had more that 2 years), can I sign up for this next month, assuming I’m under 5/24?
I had the same question!
Yes shouldn’t be a problem if it has been 24 months since getting the bonus. Many people did this with the new Hyatt card.
Last year they sent me a targeted offer for 50,000 miles after spending $2,000 plus a $100 statement credit after first purchase. I jumped on the deal then, personally that deal was better for me than this one.
That is a good offer. Yeah this offer is best for families or for people that fly often with someone else. You would have to fly 20K rapid rewards points worth of flights with a companion this year to make this offer equal. Not everyone will do that.
Avoids having to spend $110,000 in the first year to get 2 years of the Pass. In this case spend $4,000 and get 30,000 points plus the Pass is a no brainer. Go ahead and spend in 2020 $110,000 and get 2 years then.
A lot of people sign up for a business card and a personal card to hit the 110,000 requirement vs putting that much spend on one card. Best to line it up at the end of the year and complete the bonus spend at the beginning of the next year.
While this sounds great you really earn 30,000 less miles than the standard card offers out there, requires $1,000 more in spending on this card (which you’d do anyway I guess) and is only good through 2019 not through 2020. Tempting though. Thanks for sharing.
That was the case for the old offers it is really 30K vs 40K since the 60K offers take 12K in spend now. And you don’t need to add a Business card to it either and spend that money. It does suck that it is only good for this year but I think the simplicity of it makes it a great offer.
Note that this CP is only good until the end of 2019. One year as compared to 2 years for the “regualar” pass.
I put that in there but I will add more detail to it for sure. Still a great opportunity for anyone who is not into the game heavily or doesn’t wanna spend 12K on a SW card to get the 60K