A long time ago, I said I would write about the Southwest Companion Pass. I know a lot of bloggers have written about it before, but it's by far my favorite part of the CC/miles game, so I just had to write about it. I'd also like to clarify that my wife is actually my true love. :) Let's get to it.
Companion Pass (CP) is a sort of elite status level that you can achieve with Southwest. It's nothing at all like an actual elite status - no priority checkin, boarding, seating, lounge access, etc. - but it does have one incredible benefit that, for me, is way more valuable than getting your own checkin line. With the CP, you can designate someone as your Companion to fly FOR FREE on any Southwest flights you take - whether you pay with cash or even with points!! You buy yourself a $350 roundtrip ticket from New York to Chicago and then your Companion gets to join you for free! That's $350 that you can keep in your pocket. It's pretty clear how lucrative this can be. If you've read my earlier posts, you know that my wife's family lives in Denver. With 4 daily nonstop flights from NYC-DEN, the Southwest Companion Pass has been an incredible value for us.
How Long It Lasts
CP status lasts throughout the calendar year in which you earn it AND the entire following calendar year! That's longer than most other airline statuses! Therefore, the earlier in a calendar year you earn it, the more time you'll have to reap the benefits. If you earn it in January of year 1, it will last till December of year 2 - almost 2 complete years!
How It Works
Once you have achieved this status, simply go into your Southwest Rapid Rewards account (or call up) and choose a person to be your Companion. You can actually change this person up to 3 times during the period you have the status for. Once you have designated your Companion, book a flight for yourself - again, either with cash or points. After you purchase the ticket, find the flight in your account, and you'll see the option to "Add a Companion". Clicking that will bring you to what is essentially a final confirmation page for a ticket with your Companion's information pre-filled, except the price will be $0 plus the taxes/fees for the flight, which are usually just $5.60 each way. I guess that's not entirely "free," but c'mon - $5 for a flight!? Your Companion will have their own confirmation number, as that's how Southwest works: each passenger needs to checkin individually for the flight to be assigned a boarding number, which indicates the order of how the passengers board the plane - first to checkin, first to board.
The Fun Part: How To Earn It
Great, I've convinced you how wonderful the Companion Pass is, but how do you actually earn the status?
You can achieve CP status by taking 100 one way flights or by earning 110,000 Rapid Rewards miles in a calendar year. Woah, seems like a lot, eh? I'll agree that flying 100 one ways (basically 50 roundtrips) in a year means you're flying several times a month, which is a lot unless your a business traveler (y'know, the kind of people that airline statuses were created to attract). But, earning 110,000 miles is more than doable if you're willing to open up some credit cards. Now, I know that line would normally cause you to roll your eyes, but if you've read my earlier posts, then you know that by doing some research, you can learn how to open credit cards and join the "game" without hurting your credit. I'm assuming you're over that hump at this point. Let's talk about the Southwest credits cards.
Southwest has 3 different credit card products - all issued by Chase. There are 2 consumer cards - the Plus and Premier, and a business card - the Business Premier. A person is eligible to get all 3 of these cards (if they so wanted) at the same time and earn the signup bonus on all 3 of them, as they are different products. Throughout the year, the signup offers on these cards change every few weeks/months, fluctuating between 25,000 and 50,000 points, and they count towards the 110K! When the offers are at 50,000 points, you could sign up for 2 of the cards and earn 100,000 points just from the signup bonuses!! Getting to 110,000 points doesn't seem so hard anymore, does it? The 50,000 offers require you to spend $2000 in the first 3 months of having the card.
So, for example, getting the consumer cards - Plus and Premier - and spending a total of $4000, will net you:
50K signup points for the Plus card and 2K points from spending $2K = 52K points
50K signup points for the Premier card and 2K points from spending $2K = 52K points
... for a total of 104K points! Now we're even closer to our magical number of 110K!
Spending the $4000 for the bonuses and the final $6000 to get to 110K is on you. If you have actual spending to do, great, go that way. If you need to "manufacture spending," I still haven't gotten to a post on that topic, but there are several ways to do this for free or very little cost. Googling should help you find some blogs where you can learn what the current options are.
I will also point out that these credit cards do have annual fees, and they're not waived for the first year, as many other cards' fees are. The Plus card has a $69 annual fee, and the Premier versions have $99 annual fees. Paying $168 in annual fees for this incredible benefit is obviously worth it and is made even more attractive by the anniversary bonuses you get for keeping the card open. On every anniversary of your card's opening date, you'll get 3000 miles for the Plus card and 6000 miles for the Premier card, which definitely helps "cover" some of that annual fee cost. Another option is to do your spending very quickly, close the cards within 60 days of opening them, and then Chase will refund the annual fees to you, as that is their policy with all credit card annual fees. So you do have that option as well. I know annual fees usually scare people off, but the cost is minuscule compared to the benefits you'll receive.
Best Time To Earn It
As I said, CP lasts for the calendar year in which you earn it and the entire following year. Therefore, earning it closer to the beginning of the year will give you more time to enjoy its benefits, as you'll have it for more of that year (and then the whole next year). So, how early can you earn it? This year, I earned mine on January 5th. And I'm proud. But even if you earn the points today, in May, you'll still get ~7 months of use this year plus the entire next year.
So, when's the best time to get started? As I said, the 50,000 bonus offers come and go throughout the year. However, they pretty consistently perk up around the end of the year, sometime from October to December. Opening up the cards in October or later will mean that the 90 days you have to earn the signup bonuses will end just after New Years (sometime in the beginning/middle of January assuming you opened the cards in the beginning/middle of October). You don't want to do the spending on the cards as soon as you get them because you want to make sure that you earn the points in January (the beginning of a calendar year) in order to maximize that year. If you spent $1000 in October and then $9000 in January, you would not have earned CP yet because all 110,000 points have to be earned in the same calendar year.
Let's look at an example. If you open the cards on October 15, 2015, you'll have until ~January 15, 2016 to get the signup bonus. You don't want to start spending in October and finish it in January because as we just said, you have to earn all the points in one calendar year. You also don't really want to do the $10,000 of spending right away in October because then you'll earn the CP in October 2015, your first year of status will be 2015 (ending in just a mere 3 months), and your second year will be 2016. However, if you get the cards now, but don't do the spending until January 2016 (still within your 90 days), then you'll earn CP in January 2016, your first year of status will be 2016 (almost a full 12 months), and your second year will be 2017, giving you almost a full 2 years of CP benefits! Now, take a look at your monthly credit card statement date. Any spending you do on the credit card after the December 2015 statement date passes will post on your January 2016 statement even though the transactions actually took place in 2015. Therefore, you can call Chase, ask to change your statement date to sometime in early December (which means your December bill will come early in the month) and then have almost the entire month of December to do your spending before your January bill comes and have all those purchases post in January. If you do it right, you can finish all $10,000 of spending in those ~30 days and have your CP earned in early January. That is how I earned my status on January 5th.
Keep in mind that after the statement closes, it will usually take 1-2 days for the points to go from Chase to Southwest and then possibly another 1-2 days for Southwest to officially award you CP status, depending on how quickly they process it (weekends affect this timeline). You do not need to wait for your official CP paperwork to arrive in the mail before you can designate your Companion. Once you see online/get an email that you have earned the status, you can go ahead and choose a Companion.
Well, that's it! I went into a lot of detail in the hopes of preemptively answering any potential questions. But, if I missed something, please ask!
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