Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

Replay: How to Earn the Southwest Companion Pass

• Raya & Duane

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In this episode, we’re revisiting one of the most valuable tools for frequent family travelers—the Southwest Companion Pass. If you've been wondering how to earn the Southwest Companion Pass, or you're looking to maximize your travel savings, this episode is for you.

We share our  personal experiences as a family of five, highlighting how earning the Southwest Companion Pass has made a huge impact on our travel plans. We explain how it allows us to fly with one companion for free (except for taxes and fees) on every Southwest flight. Since earning their Companion Passes in early 2023, they’ve traveled to destinations like Maui, Costa Rica, and Washington, D.C., only paying for a fraction of their family’s flights.

If you’re new to this game-changer, we break down exactly how to earn the Southwest Companion Pass, covering the most important steps like when to apply for Southwest credit cards and how to meet the minimum spending requirements. Timing is critical, and Raya and Duane explain how to maximize your travel benefits by planning strategically, especially if you're a larger family like theirs.

Here’s what we’ll cover in this episode:

  1. What is the Southwest Companion Pass?
  2. How to Earn the Southwest Companion Pass: We walk you through earning the 135,000 Rapid Rewards points needed within one calendar year. Raya also explains the alternative way to earn the Companion Pass by flying 100 Southwest flights, though she acknowledges that’s a harder route for most families.
  3. Maximizing the Companion Pass for Two Years: Learn why applying for the right Southwest credit cards at the right time can help you stretch the benefits for almost two full years.
  4. Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Get the Companion Pass: Raya and Duane explain how the Southwest Companion Pass makes sense for people who frequently travel to domestic and nearby international destinations. They also discuss how it may not be the best fit if you don’t live near a Southwest hub or prefer long-haul international travel.

One of the most crucial takeaways from this episode is understanding the best time to apply and spend on your Southwest credit cards. Raya stresses that if you want to earn the Companion Pass for the maximum amount of time, it’s important to ensure that your points hit your account after January 1st, so you can enjoy the pass for two full years.

Throughout the episode, they also share their personal strategies and a mistake Raya made when they first earned their passes—one she wants you to avoid. Whether you’re aiming for more frequent family vacations or planning weekend getaways, this episode is packed with tips on how to earn the Southwest Companion Pass, how to use it, and why it’s a game-changer for larger families.

If you're thinking about applying for Southwest credit cards, now is the time to start, so you can begin earning your Companion Pass for next year. As always, feel free to message us on Instagram at @TravelPartyof5 if you have any questions about how to earn the Southwest Companion Pass. We’re here to help you make your family travel more affordable!

Speaker 1:

Hi, friends, we are doing something a little bit different today, and something that we've never done before, which is we are pulling a podcast episode out of the vault and we are replaying it, and the reason for that is this particular podcast episode is all about the Southwest Companion Pass and why we think it is such a game changer for families of four, or more so, for a family of five like us, it makes a huge difference in how often we're able to travel. Duane and I each earned our companion pass in roughly February of 2023. And since then, we have taken our family of five on trips to Maui, washington DC, costa Rica and Kauai, and Duane and I have also taken couples trips to San Francisco, new York City and Grand Caymans. That's a lot of travel for not even two full years time, and so every single one of those family trips, we only paid for three flights and we got two flights for free, and on every single one of those couples trips, we only paid for one ticket and we got two flights. So, basically, buy one, get one.

Speaker 1:

The timing of this episode is important, and right now it is mid October, and now is the time to start applying for the Southwest cards so that you can meet the minimum spends in the beginning of January and earn your companion pass for the next two years. I cannot stress enough how valuable the Southwest companion pass is If you're a bigger family and each parent can get one. I think it's such a game changer. So listen to this episode.

Speaker 1:

Let us know on Instagram, at TravelPartyof5, if you have questions and we will be back of the travel party of five podcast where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world we will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as five around the world.

Speaker 2:

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

Speaker 1:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip. Hey guys, welcome back to the travel party of five podcast. My name is duane, I'm here with my beautiful wife raya, and today we're going to talk about the southwest companion pass yes, so I think it's actually really fitting that we're starting off with the companion pass.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so I think it's actually really fitting that we're starting off with the companion pass, because this is really how we started travel hacking a year ago. And so we are going to talk about number one. What is the southwest companion pass? Number two how do you earn it?

Speaker 1:

um the best time of year to get it yes, um, I'm also going to share the biggest companion pass mistake that I made. That still haunts me to this day, and we will also share a few of the trips that we have taken with our family of five using the companion pass.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so hopefully this will be useful and you can learn a thing or two.

Speaker 1:

So OK, let's jump right in. So the Southwest Companion Pass is basically a pass that allows you to take one companion with you on any Southwest flight for free. The only thing you pay is whatever the taxes and fees are on that flight.

Speaker 2:

Which is pretty much nothing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and for domestic flights it's $5.60 per leg of flying, cents per leg of flying. So like, if you fly and you have a layover, you're gonna pay 11 and 20 cents, which is an incredible deal really and a really great way to fly as a larger family.

Speaker 2:

so, basically, when we fly southwest, family of five, we pay for three tickets yep, because I have a companion pass and you have a companion pass.

Speaker 1:

Do you have any idea how we earned these companion passes?

Speaker 2:

of course I don't. That's why I married you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so I think let's talk about who should or should not get the companion pass, and then we'll talk about how you earn it and how we did it twice. Sound like a plan.

Speaker 2:

Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 1:

So I think that there's a lot of hype and talk about the companion pass and a lot of people, I think, think that this is what they should do, but you have to really look at number one, where you are based out of, and number two, where you'd like to travel in the next one to two years, because if you don't live near a southwest hub or you plan to do a lot of international travel, then southwest really doesn't make sense yeah so southwest flies predominantly within the united states and then they do have like they fly to a bunch of destinations in Mexico.

Speaker 1:

Uh, Costa Rica yep, uh, belize, and that's really about it. I think I'm sure I'm missing one or two, but for the most part we're staying in North South America, would you say? That's right? Yeah, yeah. And if you don't live in an airport that has a southwest hub for example, we are in phoenix and there's a ton of southwest flights in and out of phoenix but if you live near, like, a smaller airport where there's no or not a lot of Southwest flights and you would need to position in order to take advantage of a Southwest flight, then this probably doesn't make a lot of sense for you and you should probably start off with a different card to get different types of points. Do you agree?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So, that being said, if you do live in a Southwest hub, like I know Houston is a big one Phoenix then it's a really, really solid option, and so our plan when we got the companion passes was basically to get the passes and then travel to those destinations over the next two years. And so we purposely planned trips around destinations that Southwest flies to.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's explain why we have two years.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so let's take one step back. So first, to earn the Southwest Companion Pass, you need to earn 135,000 Southwest points, which are called Rapid Rewards points.

Speaker 2:

On your Southwest credit card.

Speaker 1:

Yes, within one calendar year. The other way to earn the Companion Pass is to take 100 southwest flights in one calendar year, and I guess if you travel a lot for work or something, maybe that is feasible for you, but that is not an option for us.

Speaker 1:

A lot of flights, yes. So we opted to go the points route, and you can earn these points with two credit card sign up bonuses. So Southwest has five different credit cards that you can sign up for. They all have their own sign up bonuses and I'm going to double check, but I think three are personal cards and two are business cards. And here's where it gets a little bit tricky. You can only have one Southwest personal card open at a time. So in order to do this strategy, you need to open one personal card and one business card, and we're going to do a whole episode about business cards. But let me just say that, even if you think you do not have a business to open this card, you likely do so if you have ever sold something on Facebook, marketplace or OfferUp, if you I mean, I don't know there's all sorts of things that can technically qualify for a business, and so we'll go like in depth in that on a future episode. But just trust me at this point when I tell you that you will need to open a business card in order to get the companion pass, and there's really no repercussions to you for doing so, even if you feel like you don't have a quote real business, quote, real business.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the five cards that are currently available from Southwest I'm not going to go into a ton of detail because I think that can be really tedious and you can easily Google it, but there is a Southwest rapid rewards premier credit card. This is a personal card. The current bonus is 75,000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $3,000 in the first three months. If I didn't say it, that's a personal card. The other two personal cards are the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus and the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority rewards priority. They all have annual fees ranging from $69 up to $149. And currently the bonus for all three is 75,000 points. So that will get you a little more than halfway to the 135,000 that you need. The reason for the varying annual fees is there are different benefits for each card.

Speaker 1:

Some include like a $100 credit towards TSA pre-check or global entry. Some include like upgraded boarding, two or four upgraded boardings a year, that sort of thing. So you need to look at the benefits for each card and decide which one makes the most sense for you and your family. And then the two business cards that are currently available are the Rapid Rewards Premier Business Credit Card and the Rapid Rewards Performance Business Credit Card. Respectively, they have bonuses right now of 60,000 and 80,000 bonus points. So if you did the 75,000 plus the 60, that alone gives you 135,000 points, which is exactly what you need to earn the Companion Pass 135 000 points, which is exactly what you need to earn the companion pass.

Speaker 1:

Now again, yes, these cards, all five of these cards, have an annual fee, um, but it's worth it it's 120 worth it yeah like, because there are benefits to these cards that will offset the annual fee, and that doesn't even factor in the points that you're getting, which you're going to redeem for way more than you know. A hundred or $200 worth of travel, yeah, okay. So let's talk about timing, because that's the biggest factor in my opinion. So you know this about me, would you say? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 2:

I am a maximizer in Definitely a maximizer In most things Without a doubt.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I want to get the most bang for my buck. I don't want to miss anything and I want to make sure that I'm taking full advantage of whatever it may be, whatever it may be. So the best time to start applying for these cards to get the companion pass is right now. So, as we are recording this, it is the first week of November.

Speaker 2:

So basically the end of the year.

Speaker 1:

Yes, but there's one thing that is the most important thing. If you take away nothing else from this podcast, this is it. The timing is very important. So what you want to do is you want to open these cards and make sure that you do not hit the minimum spend until after January 1st. And the reason for that? You want to tell the reason.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, I was going to ask you why.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So when you earn the companion pass, you earn it for all of that year plus the following year. So whether you earn it on December 1st or February 1st, so let's say okay, let's say we earn it on February 1st of 2024. So then we have the companion pass for all of 2024 and All of 2025.

Speaker 2:

Yes, now, if you were to get it in December, you would have it for. Just the month of December of 2023, and then all of 2024.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so what 13 months?

Speaker 2:

Yes, as opposed to 24 months.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, or close there to it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's just a little tricky because you want to open the cards and you want to spend, for example, one of these personal cards. The minimum spend Actually all of the personal cards, the minimum spend is $3,000. And so what you want to do is get approved for the cards, get the cards, maybe put your Christmas shopping on it. Don't put on any like subscription charges or anything that's going to auto charge every month is or anything that's going to auto charge every month, and then, when you've spent around $2,500, I would put the card in a drawer and I would not touch it again until January 1st and then on January 1st you can spend that additional $500 to get you to the $3,000 and those points will hit your account sometime in January, likely, depending on when you yes, meaning that you would have it from February yep, and then, once those points hit your account and you've achieved 135,000 points, you'll get an email that says congratulations, you've earned the Southwest Companion Pass, and then you will designate your companion and you can add them to any upcoming flights.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you can have up to up to five people.

Speaker 2:

Correct, you can.

Speaker 1:

You can choose from well, so you can change it three times per calendar year. Okay, yeah, so and the person that you name as your companion first, that doesn't count as one of the three. So like, let's say, I name you as my companion, I can then change you three times over the course of that calendar year and then the next calendar year, since we will have it for almost two years, you have another three that you can change it to. So it's, it's pretty flexible. So generally our companions are our kids two of our kids, but I've also named my sister as a companion once to fly.

Speaker 2:

We just flew a quick flight to san diego, but it was really easy really, really simple yeah, so I think, well, let me just add, if the three thousand dollars in three months scares you, what we did was just used it to, you know, just like a debit card, for those three months, and just paid it off, you know, as if it was a debit card.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think that's like the most important thing when it comes to any travel rewards is you should not be spending extra money. This should be money that you are going to spend no matter what.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we spent it on. What Groceries.

Speaker 1:

Groceries.

Speaker 2:

Gas Yep, you know all the things we would use the debit card for.

Speaker 1:

Christmas shopping, yep, yeah, and so if you're spending extra money, money, then you're not actually really getting any travel for free.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and, and that's the whole goal, right? Um, the other thing that I think is super important is, um, the, while the annual fee does not technically count towards your minimum spend, on the tracker that Southwest has on their like, when you log into your account it counts the minimum spend towards your total $3,000. Even though, like, technically it doesn't, but on the tracker it does. So the reason I'm telling you that is, if the fee is $199, you really want to spend $2,300, maybe allow room for that $200 fee which gets you to $2,500, and then plan to spend $500 to $700 after Januaryuary 1st. The other thing that's like I see this in these facebook groups that I'm in every single year is, if you buy something for, let's say, five hundred dollars and then you return it, the, the tracker doesn't claw back five hundred dollars, so, like, even though it was returned, southwest will still give you the five hundred dollars no, no, not the five hundred dollars, but they'll give you like it'll be as if you've.

Speaker 2:

You didn't get it returned yeah, so okay, that's what I meant the five hundred dollar credit, or yes?

Speaker 1:

and now, like in good faith, you should still spend the five hundred dollars, because there are situations where they will claw back the points. But the reason that's important is if you spend, let's say, $3,000, which is the minimum spend but then you return something for $500, thinking that that's going to keep you from getting the points before the end of the year, it's not. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

It does. It's almost like beating the system, though.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you don't want to like. It's not a good practice to get into. Like it's, it's bad juju credit card karma. Like you want to meet the minimum spend, you want to follow the rules, of course, um, but in a situation where the timing is so important and we can't hit that minimum spend until after january 1st or we've robbed ourselves of a year, basically of this companion pass, a lot of people don't realize. They think, oh well, I returned it, so it's not going to count, but it is going to count in the short run yeah, so pay attention to that yeah, um, okay, let's see

Speaker 1:

what else we need to cover we've talked about the best time of year. Okay, let's talk about the companion past mistake that, like, haunts me to this day, which is that when we did this well, and by we she means her when I did this, I opened up a business card for myself and a personal card for myself.

Speaker 1:

And then I did the same thing for Dwayne. So I opened up a business card for myself and a personal card for myself. And then I did the same thing for Dwayne, so I opened up a business card for him and a personal card. And we had to stagger it a little bit to make sure that we could meet the minimum spend on each card without spending extra money. And again, fortunately, it was Christmas time, so that does help. It does help. Yeah, it comes in handy. It was Christmas time, so that does help. It does help. Yeah, it comes in handy. But I think the minimum spend is three thousand on every card, except one of the business cards, it's five thousand. So a lot of cards their minimum spend is like five or six thousand at a minimum. So it's already not not difficult to do, in my opinion, because I mean, we have three kids yeah, we're gonna spend it anyway you know we at the time had put their daycare on it um car payment, or did we do?

Speaker 2:

no, you can't do, you can't, you can't use unsecured debt to pay for unsecured debt so sadly sadly, the car payment is not eligible.

Speaker 1:

But I mean we spend almost $2,000 a month on groceries alone and like eating out. Yeah, so it's doable, but here, ok, so here's the mistake that I made that as a maximizer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have made the same mistake.

Speaker 1:

Oh please. So once you have a card. So, for example, when I opened my South the first Southwest business card, I as a side note I started with the business card first. That is what was recommended to me from a Facebook group that I'm in. That is what was recommended to me from a Facebook group that I'm in, and the reason was, if you get denied for the business card, you're kind of SOL Because you need one of each and at least applying for the business card it doesn't count towards your 524 status, which is something else that we need to talk about. It's a chase rule. We'll go into that more on a different episode.

Speaker 1:

I think too much to go into here it is very important, yeah, and it's really the first place that anyone should start when they're thinking about getting into travel. Hacking is figuring out where you fall on the 5 and 24 um spectrum, but I digress anyways. Okay, so my biggest mistake that I made was I should have referred you to the Southwest business card once I had opened it, because when you do that, you get referral points plus whatever points you get from the signup bonus, plus whatever points you get from the signup bonus. I didn't do that. I think I was concerned about the referral points falling in this calendar year, but in reality, that wouldn't have made a difference. We would have gotten the referral points likely in 2022, which was when we started but we still would have had enough points in 2023 with the signup bonuses to get the pass. So really, I just gave up like 80,000 points, because I'm pretty sure the referral bonus is 40,000 points which I'm sure you won't do again.

Speaker 1:

I will never make that mistake again. It still haunts me to this day. But I mean, it is you live and you learn yeah, learn from my mistakes. Um, the other thing, and I just told you this this morning and you were surprised by it, right?

Speaker 2:

so once you, you earn the companion pass and you keep the 135,000 points, which is great it's fantastic.

Speaker 1:

So it's not like you are using those 135,000 points to purchase the companion pass.

Speaker 1:

It's just that once you've reached those points, you've unlocked the companion pass and now you have 135 000 plus points because you'll companion pass yeah, and so you can spend those points on southwest flights yep, it's a win-win it's a fantastic deal for, especially for big families, and so we each earned a companion pass at the very beginning of this year, 2023, and we ended up with close to more than 270 000 points, which we have then spent to buy flights. So we we were. Where have we gone so far?

Speaker 2:

We just got back from Disneyland.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, but we didn't fly there.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, that's right. We drove Shoot. We've been. Where have we been this year?

Speaker 1:

Okay, In March we went to Maui.

Speaker 1:

Maui Okay in March we went to Maui, maui. So we it was a little tricky with the timing of Maui because we went for our kids spring break, which was like mid-March, and we were with the timing of the companion passes. I think we earned one in January and then one like later February, and so it was only a few weeks oh, it was only a few weeks before we left that we earned your companion pass, which came in second. So I had already purchased our Hawaii flights, but the way that I did it was I purposely purchased fully refundable flights.

Speaker 2:

So then you were able to go back and use the companion pass.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I was able to go back and add our two companions, which are our two boys, one me, one you and then I refunded their tickets that I had paid cash for.

Speaker 2:

Smart.

Speaker 1:

And so the only thing we paid for Hawaii was we paid $800 for our daughter's flight, and first of all, that's an incredible amount for one person to fly to Hawaii, in my opinion, as someone who is kind of cheap. But it's spring break, that's peak travel time, especially going to Hawaii, and we did not plan this well in advance, so we were kind of coming into this like a few months prior deciding that we were going to go and we just had lost out on the ability to like when you book a year out or well, southwest doesn't release a year out, they release about six months out.

Speaker 1:

But their flights yeah, but when you, when you're, when you book right away, you generally can get a better deal than if you wait and we did not book right away. So, um, but I mean, we paid eight hundred dollars plus a bunch of points for our family of five to fly to maui and back, which I think is still worth it pretty good yeah okay, where else have we gone? We, you and I, flew to new york yep for a long weekend without the kids.

Speaker 2:

Southwest flies to la guardia yep did we go to San Francisco this year? Oh yeah, we went to San Francisco.

Speaker 1:

That was also just me and you. Another quick little kid-free getaway. Yep, we are flying to Washington DC, actually in three days.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

And all of these flights used the points that we earned.

Speaker 2:

Yep and the companion pass.

Speaker 1:

And the companion passes. Yep, I feel like I'm missing a flight. Where else did we go? I mean, I flew with my sister to San Diego. Maybe that's what I'm thinking San.

Speaker 2:

Diego, you and your sister. San Francisco, New York, yeah.

Speaker 1:

San Francisco, new York and then upcoming we have, we're going to Costa Rica next. March we've already booked those flights, all on Southwest, using our companion pass, and then we're also going to go to Kauai next. September fall and we can't book those flights yet because southwest has not released them. But you and I are going to go back to new york again in august, is that it?

Speaker 1:

I think that's it yeah I'm sure we'll throw in a few trips like some weekend trips, yeah, but yeah, I mean, it's like I think when you have a larger family, being able to get two flights for free every time you fly is such an incredible way to save money and to make definitely is and to make your you know your travel more frequent and or cheaper, or both, depending on what you're looking for. Yeah, okay, is there anything else we wanted to cover? Let me see.

Speaker 2:

I think that about covers our agenda for today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think if you have any questions about the companion pass, feel free to. I guess you can't really comment. There's no comment. There's no comments, there's only reviews. Um, so I think, okay, if you want to, if you, okay, here, here's what I've got. If you want to get one or two southwest companion passes, this is how I would do it. Okay, today today is November 4th Okay, I would apply for one of the Southwest personal cards. Again, whichever one makes the most sense for you, based on the benefits they offer For Chase. You can apply for one business card and one personal card within a 30-day window generally. So that is what I would do. And then, if you want your player two, which is what you would call, like your partner, your husband, whoever else is playing this game with you, I would have them do the same thing. And if you can meet like a $6,000 minimum spend in, you know, over the course of two to three months, then you can both apply for those cards at the same time.

Speaker 1:

If not, you can stagger it a little bit and then from there again, you want to get to around twenty five hundred dollars in spend put the cards in a drawer and then on january 1st or jan, us was to hit that, because we basically had around $2,000 that we needed to spend and I did that by prepaying for daycare for our daughter for one month, that got one of them, for one month, that got one of them. And then I mean I think I don't know if I bought gift cards or maybe we just used it for groceries and Costco and stuff on the other two but we had earned both companion passes by, I think, mid to end of February of 2023, and so now we have the companion pass for all of 2023 and then all of 2024.

Speaker 2:

Yes, which is great.

Speaker 1:

It's fantastic, and then we can apply again two years after you've earned the bonuses on the Southwest personal cards. So basically, there will be a one-year gap where we don't have it. So 2025 we will not have companion passes, but at the end of 2025, as long as it's still a thing, we will go through this whole same process again, likely as long as where we're traveling is yeah you know, makes sense so ideally two years with the companion pass one year off yep, and I think we already have some like international travel plans for that year that southwest doesn't fly to anyways.

Speaker 2:

Japan, here we come.

Speaker 1:

Yes, japan 2025. That is our plan, okay, well, thank you guys for listening in. Hopefully this was helpful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

And any questions. Feel free to find us on Instagram. Travel Party of Five and send us a message. We will see you on the next episode have a good one.