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Southwest Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card
Chase has one of the most lucrative credit card offers we’ve seen for the premium Southwest Airlines business card. It’s a great card as I’ll show you in a moment but let’s first look at the initial bonus offer for the card, meant to make a really big splash and it does with up to 100,000 points as an initial bonus, which in 2020 is enough to earn a Companion Pass. When you earn the bonus you have enough points for a Companion Pass even under standard rules that return in 2021.
Here’s the offer: 70,000 points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. Plus, earn an additional 30,000 points after you spend $25,000 on purchases in the first 6 months.
You earn 100,000 bonus points plus at least 25,000 from your spending. That earns a companion pass for the rest of 2020 and for all of 2021. And you have 125,000 points which – doubled via the Companion Pass – buys about $3750 worth of travel.
Better Than an Offer for a Companion Pass
Last year Chase offered to let new cardmembers earn points and a companion pass with new Southwest personal card signup. That was a compelling offer and many folks jumped at the chance to have a designated companion fly for just the cost of security taxes whenever the cardmember was on a paid or redemption ticket with Southwest.
That offer was for a companion pass valid through the end of 2019. Earning 100,000 bonus points is even better.
- 125,000 points in a calendar year earns a companion pass. The initial bonus plus the points earned on the card from spending count towards that total.
- When you earn a companion pass (rather than receiving a promotional one) — and this offer gets you there — it’s valid for the rest of the calendar year and the entire next calendar year.
- So this offer can get you 2020 and 2021 and since you’re also earning a lot of points those points can cover a lot of air travel for you to take along a companion for the cost of taxes alone.
As a result I would rate this Southwest Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card offer as significantly better than any other Southwest card offer to date. What’s more, even though Chase credit cards are generally subject to ‘5/24’ (you’re eligible only if you’ve had fewer than 5 new cards in the last 24 months), Chase business cards should not increase your 5/24 total. If you’re under 5/24 and are approved for this card you should stay under 5/24.
Southwest Performance Business Card Benefits
Here’s points earning with this new card: 3x on Southwest Airlines purchases, as well as hotel and car rental partner purchases through Southwest’s website; 2x social media + search ads and internet/cable/phone; 1x on everything else.
Where this card really shines is in the travel benefits it offers. Like the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card personal card, cardmembers receive 4 upgraded boardings per year, A1-15 boarding, which you purchase at the gate and get statement credit back for.
Southwest Performance Business Card cardmembers are eligible to receive a statement credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck every four years. But a unique benefit is Southwest Airlines inflight wifi credits.
I regularly pay $8 per flight for internet on Southwest Airlines. This card will give you up to 365 wifi purchase credits per year. And employee cards come with no annual fee, so I believe getting extra cards should allow you to spread around the wifi credit benefit.
Southwest Performance Business Card is Huge for Southwest Flyers
These are great and valuable benefits which make the card’s $199 annual fee well worth it. You also receive 9000 Southwest anniversary points with card renewal each year. In cash terms I value Southwest points at 1.3 cents apiece though they buy about 1.5 cents apiece in travel. Earning 125,000 points should get you around $1875 in Southwest Airlines travel (which can be doubled via Companion Pass), and 9000 more points should get you $135 in travel on and ongoing basis. That’s most of the annual fee right there as well.
As with other Southwest co-brand cards spending contributes towards elite status: 1500 tier qualifying points for each $10,000 in purchases (up to $100,000 in purchases annually or 15,000 tier qualifying points) and of course it goes a long way towards Southwest’s companion pass. This Visa Signature card has no foreign transaction fees as well.
Seems like the best strategy here would be to sign up for the card in November or December, then hit spend target as soon after Jan 1, 2021 as possible. Then you’d have the companion pass two full years through 12/31/2022. Right?
@CO Joe: Presumably the in 2021 the points required for the companion pass will go back up to 125,000 in the new year, meaning you’d have to spend more to get the companion pass.
If you do try that strategy, remember to not hit even the lower spend threshold in 2020 as then your points would be split across the two calendar years.
@LarryInNYC if you start spending the $25k in January then you’ll receive 100k points in bonuses plus 25k points for spend, so you’ll hit the 125k total. 😉
@LarryInNYC you would want to start spending after your December statement closed, so that all spend goes toward 2021. If your statement closes Dec 3, start spending on the 4th but if it closes the 30, don’t spend until 31st. If you get it and have a end of the month closing, you can call Chase and they will change your closing date but you’d want to do that in advance.
So because Covid my Companion Pass was extended to June 2021. When I earn it this year will that only extend it 6 months or will I earn it for 2021 and 2022? If it’s only good then through 2021 it’s really a cheap shot to me for spending to get it. And yes, this time around it’s all spend…putting a yard in ain’t cheap 🙂
Good luck to anyone getting approved for Chase business cards right now. Very unlikely without significant business history and revenue.