I know I am the last one to get one of these....seems pretty easy, annual fee stinks, get free miles based on how much money I spend on it. Anything else I need to know before getting one? I see that the points don't expire, is that really true? Thanks

Correct if have activity within a certain time
Period. Think a year. Get it if you live near a sw airpott

Shoot me an email at stpaulaggie at yahoo dot com and I can give you a bonus reward number that will give you 50K points if you spend $3k in the first three months instead of the standard 25k...

How bout you shoot me an email

What's your email address then?

https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/southwest/2rtfosam1

50k bonus ^

If you do these right (assuming you have good credit), sign-up spend enough to get the bonus. Sign up for another card with a bonus (AA, Delta, United, etc) and cancel this one.. A couple years from now you can do the Southwest card again.

Get the SW card in January. Get a SW business card in February if you can. Burn the $6K in 3 months and then another $4K and you get a companion pass valid til the end of the following calendar year.

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Get the SW card in January. Get a SW business card in February if you can. Burn the $6K in 3 months and then another $4K and you get a companion pass valid til the end of the following calendar year.

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This. I take my son on a ton of trips with him as my companion. You can even use your companion pass to book when you reserve with points. It doesn't have to be a paid trip.

I've had people tell me this card is better, benefits wise, than the AA card. Can anyone with experience vouch for this? AA hub is closer by about 20 minutes but not a big deal I guess.

I have to travel AA for work. So I travel AA for everything. #pointsprison

The companion pass, earned by earning 110,000 points for Southwest in a calendar year, is in my opinion the best travel reward out there. It's the remaining calendar year and the following buy one get one free. Obviously, you're restricted to where SW flies, but since getting my companion pass we've flown to: Vegas, Chicago, Charleston, Phoenix, DC, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and a one off ticket to Atlanta. All of those places and I still have 20k points left and 5 months on my pass.

Nobody ever made money by earning points.

Companion pass all the way. We've been payin half price for the last two years! And had the 110k points to use!

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Nobody ever made money by earning points.

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Lies. Chase sapphire gave 50K points for spending 4K in the 3 months. Put the family vacation rental house through VRBO on it get paid back. Plus swirled all auto drafts to in (money I spend every month anyways) and next thing you know they have $700 for me. I did nothing besides pay my bills and made $700 for using their piece of plastic.

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Nobody ever made money by earning points.

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Dave Ramsey entered this thread. In reality, it's all about self-control. If you can avoid spending extra because you have credit and pay the bill of each month, rewards are definitely worthwhile. I don't fly that much, but can't remember the last time I paid for a ticket or hotel room for that matter.

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Nobody ever made money by earning points.

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Dave Ramsey entered this thread. In reality, it's all about self-control. If you can avoid spending extra because you have credit and pay the bill of each month, rewards are definitely worthwhile. I don't fly that much, but can't remember the last time I paid for a ticket or hotel room for that matter.

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Hah. Agreed. I actually have two cards. Amex platinum and citi master card executive. My company pays for the two card fees that come along with it. I also travel frequently so I average 7-8k in credit card payments monthly.

Like you said pay it off monthly hold zero balance and the points don't stop. I can't even use my points fast enough when it comes to flights and hotels.

edit: see below

Edit: accidental double post

Www.reddit.com/r/churning if you're interested at all in chasing credit card rewards. Most of these people take it overboard but there's good info there for someone who just wants to maximize rewards without much extra effort.

You people talking about using your companion pass.. is this a one and done deal? I assume most people only are able to get it with the initial sign up bonus..

You can be eligible to get the sign up bonus again two years later. People that travel a lot for work can do it, as there's a way to get it for a certain number of segments. Marriott also has a program that if you book their hotel for a week you can earn enough points to qualify for the companion pass as well.

Really you have to work the system, fly a ton, spend a ton, or get the sign up bonus, but with it being every two years essentially, there are ways to get it done.

I fly out of AA hubs mostly. So it is almost always cheaper to fly American. So I have AA miles and card. Its not a bad deal. The initial sign up bonus and the free checked bags more than make up for the yearly fee (that is waved for the first year)

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You can be eligible to get the sign up bonus again two years later.

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You mean by canceling card and signing up again?

Either that or your spouse could apply or if you have a legitimate business, you could apply for their business card. They have two different levels of cards too. One that's $69/year and another that's $99 so the options vary.

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You can be eligible to get the sign up bonus again two years later.

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You mean by canceling card and signing up again?

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Yes.

I signed up for chase sapphire preferred and got the 50K bonus points + 5K for adding my wife as an authorized user. We have had the card for 2 years now. I just signed my wife up for her own card now though using my referral bonus and added myself as an authorized user on her card so we will get the 10K referral bonus + 50K sign up bonus + 5K authorized user bonus. Since it has been 2 years since I got the sign up bonus I plan to cancel my card and send a referral from my wifes card back to me and sign up again + add her again as authorized user.

So in just over 2 yrs we will have gotten a total of 185K points from sign up & referral bonuses + whatever points we accumulated from day to day spending. I plan to obtain both of these by end of this year and then switch over to sign up for both a personal and business southwest card at the end of this year under my name to hopefully meet the spending requirements in Jan/Feb of 2017 & obtain companion pass for remainder of 2017 and all of 2018.

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You can be eligible to get the sign up bonus again two years later.

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You mean by canceling card and signing up again?

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Yes.

I signed up for chase sapphire preferred and got the 50K bonus points + 5K for adding my wife as an authorized user. We have had the card for 2 years now. I just signed my wife up for her own card now though using my referral bonus and added myself as an authorized user on her card so we will get the 10K referral bonus + 50K sign up bonus + 5K authorized user bonus. Since it has been 2 years since I got the sign up bonus I plan to cancel my card and send a referral from my wifes card back to me and sign up again + add her again as authorized user.

So in just over 2 yrs we will have gotten a total of 185K points from sign up & referral bonuses + whatever points we accumulated from day to day spending. I plan to obtain both of these by end of this year and then switch over to sign up for both a personal and business southwest card at the end of this year under my name to hopefully meet the spending requirements in Jan/Feb of 2017 & obtain companion pass for remainder of 2017 and all of 2018.

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When you cancel your card, won't you lose your points? You plan to use them first?

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I have to travel AA for work. So I travel AA for everything. #pointsprison

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Ditto.

Sucks.

So, here's a dumb question for you guys...

I have been using 2 credit cards as "debit" cards for about 5 years now. I use Bank of America Cash Rewards and Bank of America Travel Rewards. Over the years, I have been given a lot of money for having these cards because I pay everything off at the end of the month. I have always wanted to have the SW card as we primarily travel with SW, but I haven't pulled the trigger because I love to be able to go on the bank of america website or app and transfer money out of my checking account over towards the balances of my 2 bank of america credit cards.

Is there a way I would be able to do this with the Southwest Card? Or would I need to have a bank account with Chase in order to be able to do that?

You should be able to set up an epay or something similar. Difference from what you do today is instead of real time payment, it will take a couple of days.

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Get the SW card in January. Get a SW business card in February if you can. Burn the $6K in 3 months and then another $4K and you get a companion pass valid til the end of the following calendar year.

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Just for clarification,

If I get a SW card now and spend 10K by the end of the 2016 I will get a companion pass for all of 2017?
Does this 10K need to be spent by me only? Or can I add my wife on and both of us contribute towards the 10k?

Can I get a SW card in 2016 and go for the 50K points and companion pass(2017) then my wife get a completely separate SW card(2017) the next year and go for another 50k points and companion pass the following year(2018)? Does that make sense?

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Shoot me an email at stpaulaggie at yahoo dot com and I can give you a bonus reward number that will give you 50K points if you spend $3k in the first three months instead of the standard 25k...

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under my SW account, it is showing me that all I need to do is spend $2,000 in first 3 months for the 50K points.

Sorry for all the posts---but as a previous poster mentioned, probably better for me to get the card in January so I could have the companion pass for closer to a year and a half. With me being in Grad school, I can rack up the expenditures very fast!

You and your wife's spending would count, but the catch to your plan is that you would ultimately earn the Companion Pass in 2016, meaning it would expire at the end of 2017. That's not the worst thing in the world, but if you timed it that you got your points credited in January 2017 it would be good for all of 2017 & 2018.

You could do your plan but since it's good that year and the following. Have her get the card and points in early 2018 to maximize time. Transferred points don't count as "earned" generally, so be aware of that.

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You and your wife's spending would count, but the catch to your plan is that you would ultimately earn the Companion Pass in 2016, meaning it would expire at the end of 2017. That's not the worst thing in the world, but if you timed it that you got your points credited in January 2017 it would be good for all of 2017 & 2018.

You could do your plan but since it's good that year and the following. Have her get the card and points in early 2018 to maximize time. Transferred points don't count as "earned" generally, so be aware of that.

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That's a great point. Ultimately, I would still need to get another 60K points to get to the 110K points needed for the companion pass (which is still another $60,000 in a calendar year with exception of double points on travel).

What if I somehow was able to get 2 Cards such as both the premier and plus cards? I could get a premier card in January and get a Plus card in like March? That way, $2,000 on each card within 3 months gets me 100K points, which would just leave me with 10K more points for the companion pass.

I'm going to get the SW card regardless, but the companion pass is a huge savings since my wife and I live in Virginia and all of our family is in Texas. I'd be willing to wait until January if I have a realistic shot and plan at the companion pass.