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Reader John shares,
My daughter just got a mailer for a Southwest Rapids Reward Card, $69 fee, not waived, 30,000 miles after $5K spend – but it comes with a companion pass good thru Feb 28, 2022. Even with Covid that is apt to be a pretty sweet deal for someone whose lifetime point balance is 17K miles.
The card that comes with a companion pass is a great deal – but – consider the current 80,000 point offer that ends February 8.
The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card has the lowest annual fee ($69) and is the Southwest card to get if you’re not a regular flyer. The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card is the best card if you’re a regular Southwest flyer — its $149 annual fee brings a $75 travel credit with Southwest and 4 A1-15 upgraded boarding reimbursements per year. Both have an amazing offer to earn 80,000 Rapid Rewards points as an initial bonus.
- Earn 50,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months.
- Earn an additional 30,000 points after you spend $10,000 on purchases in the first 9 months.
You normally need to earn 125,000 eligible points in for a pass that will be valid through the end of 2022. However all accounts that were open in 2020 are being gifted 25,000 companion pass qualifying points as a head start.
Meet the spending requirement and you’ll have a minimum of 90,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. These count towards companion pass. As long as your Southwest Rapid Rewards account was open in 2020 you’ll only need 10,000 more qualifying points for a companion pass that’s valid longer – through 12/31/22 – and you have a lot more points.
So seems to me which one is better depends on how much spend you can do. For most the 80,000 point offers are probably better.
>>However all accounts that were open in 2020 are being gifted 25,000 companion pass qualifying points as a head start.<<
So this is a targeted offer for people who got one of these 2 SWA credit cards last year?
@Terri M
I believe “accounts” refers to Rapid Rewards accounts, not credit card accounts. I received the 25k points and have no SWA credit cards.
I’ve had a Southwest Premier card for many years. Would I be eligible for this card I am under the 524 rule
the short term CP deals are a sucker play. how much leisure flying (with companions) will anyone really be doing this year?
the 80k offer is tempting, but maybe better to wait until the end of the year so you can get a full 2 years of use. of course, you won’t get the 25k head start, but WN seems to have a new CP promo every year now.
Kenny: Southwest has a 1/24 rule that prevents you from getting the same bonus within 2 years. In the old days you could have 2+ cards from the same family, but not sure if that still holds. For this reason I now dump my WN cards after a year or two as they are useless for much beyond the signup bonus and CP.