Southwest Airlines is out with a double elite qualifying offer on paid tickets, allowing award travel to count towards status as well, and pairing it with increased status-earning from spend on a Southwest Airlines credit card all between March 1 and May 31, 2023.

Log into your Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards account. Under ‘my account’ you’ll see promotions. And this should appear:

Click through and you’ll find (3) ways to accelerated status-earning.

Normally, Southwest Airlines status requires:

• A-List: 25 flights or 35,000 qualifying points
  
• A-List Preferred: 50 flights or 70,000 qualifying points

The biggest benefit of status, to me, is an earlier ‘boarding number’ that lets you ensure your choice of seats. There are other priority benefits, of course, and free wifi and more points for the higher ‘A-List Preferred’ tier, but I view boarding before those paying for ‘early bird check-in’ as the real sweet spot.

The Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards program is making 3 offers over this three month period from March through May:

1. Double qualifying points Earn double points on paid travel that you book after registering and fly between now and May 31, 2023.

   You’re not earning extra segments, just extra points under this offer. And any travel you’ve already booked doesn’t count, so you’ll need to cancel and rebook. The good news is that there’s no change fees to do this. The bad news is that prices may have changed since you originally booked.

2. Award travel counts Flights booked on points will earn qualifying segments, and you’ll earn points based on the number of points you spend (10% of points redeemed qualify as tier qualifying points) between March 1 – May 31, 2023.

   As with double qualifying points on paid travel, only award travel booked after registering for this offer qualifies.

3. Earn status credit via co-brand credit card spend. ASouthwest credit cards except for the entry level ‘Plus’ card normally earn 1,500 tier qualifying points for every $10,000 spent.

   On top of that, this offer lets all co-brand cardmembers earn 3,000 tier qualifying points for every $5,000 in purchases from March 1 – May 31, 2023.

Bonus qualifying credit won’t post right away. The terms of the offer commit only that these credits will post prior to June 30, 2023.

Airlines have just lost a lot of elite members – those who earned status in 2019, many of whom had their status extended and extended again due to the pandemic, plus those who had earned status along the way. At the same time managed business travel remains down 25% – 30%. It’s a good time to encourage people who may have lost status to come back.

Meanwhile at Delta award travel counts permanently towards status. Virgin Atlantic was first to do this. Southwest ran a similar offer, without the credit card component, back in the fall so Rapid Rewards redemptions sometimes count towards status. Hopefully they’ll make this permanent.