Apparently I can burn up a LOT of Marriott points (if I do it soon) and have one valid through 12/18. Worth it for me and the Mrs. living in Houston? Other thoughts?

Best travel reward imo. Any ticket you purchase, you get one free. Method I got it from was getting both the southwest cards (premier and plus) and getting the 50k bonus on each. This got me to 104k points (4k from min spend of 2k on each card). Needed 6k more for the pass so I transferred some UR points from my chase sapphire preferred account to my Hyatt program, and Hyatt to Southwest. UR directly to Southwest didn't count towards the pass yet Hyatt to Southwest did. This is no longer allowed as of this month sometime so I was scrambling to get this done before the deadline. Just got it Weds

Lost it end of last year, doing it again this time with wife's name, just got a later start then we should have it's incredible. Best travel perk by far.

Yup, no longer allowed as of 4/1, all you have to do is call in to purchase it from Marriott and 2-3 days later the SW points were credited. So if you do decide to do it, do it today or tomorrow at the latest.

It's a great feature. To determine if it's truly worth it, you'll have to factor in flight frequency for the two of y'all, and then you'll have to ensure you'll be able to stay at the same hotel for an entire week. We plan on staying at the Grand Marriott Beach Resort in Alabama for a week this summer, so it matched up to be worth it for us.

Make sure you call the number on the page, and have your Marriott points number and SW number handy. If you call a different number the agent will likely be clueless about what you're wanting to purchase. SW points are credited a couple days later, and you can call back when you're ready to book your stay.

It must be redeemed at the same hotel for the whole week. There are a lot of rumors that SW will soon be including Hawaii in their flights, plus adding the Carribean and more domestic destinations, I think it's a fantastic redemption.

2012Ag said:

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Best travel reward imo. Any ticket you purchase, you get one free. Method I got it from was getting both the southwest cards (premier and plus) and getting the 50k bonus on each. This got me to 104k points (4k from min spend of 2k on each card). Needed 6k more for the pass so I transferred some UR points from my chase sapphire preferred account to my Hyatt program, and Hyatt to Southwest. UR directly to Southwest didn't count towards the pass yet Hyatt to Southwest did. This is no longer allowed as of this month sometime so I was scrambling to get this done before the deadline. Just got it Weds

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I just got to 108K miles on this method. Throwing all my spending at that card to get there...

2012Ag said:

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Best travel reward imo. Any ticket you purchase, you get one free. Method I got it from was getting both the southwest cards (premier and plus) and getting the 50k bonus on each. This got me to 104k points (4k from min spend of 2k on each card). Needed 6k more for the pass so I transferred some UR points from my chase sapphire preferred account to my Hyatt program, and Hyatt to Southwest. UR directly to Southwest didn't count towards the pass yet Hyatt to Southwest did. This is no longer allowed as of this month sometime so I was scrambling to get this done before the deadline. Just got it Weds

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My wife and I both have one and have our kids as our companions and have been able to travel the country over the last couple years with them. Essentially we balance the Plus, Premier, and Business cards (buying and cancelling) as well as buying everything on one card and whenever we buy stuff online we go through the SW website when possible (for instance my wife got 10X miles for re-ordering her contacts).

Best perk in travel, period. We have had the 4 of us travel to NY, LA, Vegas, San Fran, Chicago, Cancun, Puerto Rico, DC, and Brownsville in the last year and a half for the cost of taxes and we still have a ton of miles.

We just cashed a bank of Marriott pts. for a 7-night Cat. 9 cert. & 120k SW miles for CP. Wife and I are overlapping CP this year, but we needed to land it before SW yanked it. It became so very easy to get CP when SPG & Marriott merged, 3x SPG to Marriott transfers, and Amex offered the SPG at 35k for Personal and Business. Between Amex SPG and Chase Marriott's Personal/Business (pre-5/24), we had 780k+ Marriott pts. Of course SW decided to yank it. Turds.

Prior, we've churned the Premiere and Business. You can re-apply every 24 months - alternate which spouse has the CP. You can change the companion three times in a year. However, as we just found out, you can't change the companion from person A to person B until person A's trip with you is complete. Friend is my Companion in April for a trip to Portland. Wife and I are flying to NYC in May and I can't book her as a companion until we're back from Portland.

I have it. Awesome. No restrictions. As long as there are 2 seats you are good to go. No fees. Nothing hidden.

bjork said:

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Prior, we've churned the Premiere and Business. You can re-apply every 24 months - alternate which

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It says you can't apply if you'd received sign up bonus in last 24 months. So it has to be longer than 24 months, since you can't sign up and receive bonus instantaneously.

I'd think it would be 27 months. Which means the travel window gets a bit shorter every subsequent time.

Sign up 1/1/17, get points 4/1/17, cancel, can't sign up until 4/1/19, get points 7/1/19.. etc...

I noticed on Marriott, it said bonus points could be taken away if card canceled within 6 months. That thwarts that even a bit more.. surprised SW hasn't put this in.
Get card 1/1/17, get points 4/1/17, can't cancel until 7/1, so second time around it's 7/1/19.

24 months + 1 day from the day your bonus points posted.

My wife's rough schedule in 2016:
11/01/15: Sign-up for personal and business SW cards
01/01/16: Hit minimum spend
~01/08/16: Bonus points posted, CP awarded


On 01/09/18 she will be re-eligible to apply. Sure, it gets shorter every time by 1 day + transit time for the card + duration to hit min. spend. Which we do in a week or two with Visa GCs. By the time I'm 35+, we'll be in February. Such is.

What does Marriott's terms have to do with Southwest?

bjork said:

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24 months + 1 day from the day your bonus points posted.

My wife's rough schedule in 2016:
11/01/15: Sign-up for personal and business SW cards
01/01/16: Hit minimum spend
~01/08/16: Bonus points posted, CP awarded

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That's 70 days from application time to earliest cancel time. Since next round is 24 months from cancel time, it's 26+ months from your wife's initial sign up time. 27 months would be the longest minimum time, if that makes sense.

I suppose if you drop 10k on Visa gift cards (isn't there a charge on those?) on day 1 of receiving card (which obviously didn't happen in your wife's schedule), then you could shorten it to 24 months plus about 2-3 weeks.
But most people can't afford to pay off a $10k credit card bill that you've essentially spread over a longer time, resulting in interest charges.



I was just saying that Marriott implemented a fine print to delay this recycle process a bit more.. can't cancel until 6 months after or they relinquish the points, so now the cycle time is 24+6 + spend time = 30+ months.
It could very well be implemented by someone like SW at any time.

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Since next round is 24 months from cancel time

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It's 24 months from the posting of bonus. There's technically not even a need to cancel. You could have as many Chase SW cards as you want in those 24 months. But you won't get the sign-up, 50k bonus until you're re-eligible at 24 months + 1 day.

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I suppose if you drop 10k on Visa gift cards (isn't there a charge on those?) on day 1 of receiving card (which obviously didn't happen in your wife's schedule), then you could shorten it to 24 months plus about 2-3 weeks.

But most people can't afford to pay off a $10k credit card bill that you've essentially spread over a longer time, resulting in interest charges.

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It's $6k of additional spend. You have $2k ea. for minimum spends = 4,000 miles. The year in which you hit 110k miles is what matters for CP. My wife had from November - end of January to hit the min. spend. She brought the cards to just under $2k in spend in December - all paid off. At the new year we hit the min. spend ASAP. The remaining $6k consisted of paying car and home insurance and Simon VCGs, ~$5 fee/$500 gift card. You can either use them or convert to money-orders at Walmart for $.70/$1k. There's no reason to miss a credit card payment.

I get SW shutting down the Marriott Hotel + Air loophole. It was stupid easy to earn CP through Marriott's partners (including UR) - which also drastically expanded after the SPG merger. But I don't ever see them clawing back bonus points. Chase in general doesn't do that. Amex does though.

bjork said:

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Since next round is 24 months from cancel time

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It's 24 months from the posting of bonus. There's technically not even a need to cancel. You could have as many Chase SW cards as you want in those 24 months. But you won't get the sign-up, 50k bonus until you're re-eligible at 24 months + 1 day.

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I didn't know this. I assumed 1 name can only have 1 SW card... That's kinda weird.

Once my 50k Miles post, I'll have a CP through the end of 2018. This thing better be allsome.