WOW! Earn Up To 120K Southwest Points, And A Companion Pass When You Signup For A Southwest Business Card!

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• Southwest Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card: Earn up to 120K points: Earn 80K bonus points for $5K spend in 3 months, plus another 40K bonus points for spending another $10K ($15K total spend) in 9 months.
• Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card: Earn up to 120K points: Earn 60K bonus points for $3K spend in 3 months, plus another 60K bonus points for spending another $12K ($15K total spend) in 9 months.

Limited time card signup bonuses:

Through 9/16/24, you can earn a limited time signup bonus on Southwest business cards:

• The Chase Southwest Performance Business Credit Card has a signup bonus of up to 120K points! Earn 80K bonus points for $5K spend in 3 months, plus another 40K bonus points for spending another $10K in 9 months. If you spend the full $15K in 2024, you’ll earn at least 135K Southwest points, enough for an unlimited use Companion Pass valid through 12/31/25!
  • The card offers some amazing benefits for Southwest loyalists including 4 annual A1-A15 boarding upgrade certificates, 9K Southwest points upon every card anniversary, 365 free Wi-Fi passes annually, 4 points per dollar spent on Southwest, double points on social media and search engine advertising, internet, cable, and phone services, local transit and commuting, and rideshare, Global Entry/Pre-Check credit, and the ability to earn unlimited tier points towards A-List status. Having this card also allows for $500 in credits to transfer Southwest points between accounts. $199 annual fee.

• The Chase Southwest Business Premier card has a signup bonus of up to 120K points! Earn 60K bonus points for $3K spend in 3 months, plus another 60K bonus points for spending another $12K in 9 months. If you spend the full $15K in 2024, you’ll earn at least 135K Southwest points, enough for an unlimited use Companion Pass valid through 12/31/25!
  • The card offers 6,000 points every card anniversary, 25% off in-flight purchases, 2 earlybird checkins per year, 3 points per dollar spent on Southwest, double points on local transit and commuting, and rideshare, has no foreign transaction fees, and the ability to earn unlimited tier points towards A-List status. Having this card also allows for $500 in credits to transfer Southwest points between accounts. $99 annual fee.

Comparison chart:

Welcome bonus terms:

Officially you can only have one active Southwest consumer card, but you can have each of the Southwest business cards. However there are DDF reports of getting approved for multiple Southwest consumer cards at the same time. Post your results in the comments!

Consumer cards: You can get the bonus as long as you don’t have an active Southwest consumer card and haven’t received a Southwest consumer card bonus in the past 24 months.

Business cards: You can get the bonus as long as you don’t have the exact same business card active and you haven’t received a bonus on the exact same business card in the past 24 months.

5/24:

Typically, Chase cards are subject to 5/24 restrictions, meaning that you are not likely to be approved if you have been approved for 5 or more consumer credit cards in the past 24 months. Note that the Chase system automatically counts cards like authorized user cards and store cards as cards that count towards 5/24, but if you explain to Chase that those cards are merely authorized user cards or store cards they can manually approve you for a new card.

However there have been many reports of 5/24 rules being waived for co-brand consumer cards like these.

You can check your credit report for free at the federally authorized annualcreditreport.com to check how many accounts are shown as being open in the past 24 months.

Value of Southwest points:

The value of Southwest points is variable based on the paid fare.

For example a nonstop flight from LaGuardia to Atlanta on 9/4 costs $58.98 or 3,389 points+$5.60. That’s a value of 1.58 cents per point.

If you’ll redeem points for an average of 1.5 cents each, that makes an 120K signup bonus worth $1,800. Plus, with the companion pass that number can double to a whopping $3,600 signup bonus!

Plus, each Southwest card comes with anniversary bonus points!

Companion pass and spend timing:

If you earn 135,000 points in 2024 from select sources, including earnings from credit card signups and credit card spending!

However, if you held a Southwest credit card on the first business day of the calendar year, you were awarded with 10,000 Companion Pass points, so you would only need to earn 125,000 Companion Pass points to earn a pass good through 12/31/25.

The same rule applies for future years.

With this offer, if you earn the full 120K bonus for $15K spend in 2024, you’ll earn an unlimited use Companion Pass valid through 12/31/25!

The pass allows you to bring a companion with you for free whenever you fly Southwest, including Hawaii, even if you are flying on a free ticket! That effectively doubles the value of your Southwest points. There is no limit to the number of free companion flights that you can take.

You can designate a companion and change that companion up to 3 times in a calendar year, so you can name up to 4 companions over the course of a year.

Pay yourself back for the annual fee

You can redeem Southwest points to pay yourself back for the annual fee at a rate of 1 cent per point.

Fee credit for transferred points:

Southwest charges a fee of 1 cent per point for points transferred to other members. Business card holders can now get a credit of up to $500 per cardmembership year for transferred points, which would cover the fees for up to 50K points. You can effectively pool together your family’s points for free!

Upgraded boarding certificates:

If you have the Southwest Performance Business Card you’ll get reimbursed for 4 annual purchases of upgraded A1-A15 boarding positions so that you can get some of the best seats on the plane.  Upgraded boardings may be purchased at the departure gate or ticket counter on the day of travel. These cost $30-$80, so this is a benefit worth up to $320 per year!

On other cards you’ll get 2 EarlyBird checkins per year, which cost $15-$25 each.

25% cash back on in-flight purchases:

Most Southwest cards now offer 25% cash back on top of points for purchases of drinks and Wi-Fi on Southwest flights!

Inflight WiFi Credit: 

If you have the Southwest Performance Business Card you’ll receive a statement credit equal to $8 Southwest WiFi charge on up to 365 charges per year! That will let you connect all of your family’s devices when you fly Southwest so that you can save a bundle!

Global Entry/Pre-Check credit:

If you have the Southwest Performance Business Card you’ll get reimbursed for Global Entry/Pre-Check Membership. You can get reimbursed for those fees ($78 for Pre-Check or $100 for Global Entry and Pre-Check) every 4 years. Membership lasts for 5 years, so you will be able to renew before your membership lapses. Global Entry/Pre-Check make flying so much easier and its great to see more cards add this benefit as I can get Global Entry and Pre-Check for free for my entire family that way!

A-List Status:

With Southwest cards besides the Plus card you can earn 1,500 tier points towards A-List status for every $5,000 spent with no cap on earnings. You can learn more about A-List status here.

Free changes and cancellations. Lock in low fares with no penalty:

Southwest allows you to cancel an award flight and redeposit the points in your account for future use without any penalties.

Thinking of taking a trip but not 100% sure about it? With Southwest points you can lock in a good rate and just cancel the trip free of charge at any point before the flight if you can’t make it!

You can use the points for yourself or book award tickets for anyone else you want to give a ticket to.

Southwest allows you to redeem points for any seat on any flight. There are no blackout dates or capacity controls.

When Southwest has a fare sale the amount of points go on sale as well as it tracks to the price of the ticket. Best of all Southwest will refund your points if the price of your award ticket falls!  Just rebook your trip online for the same dates or give them a call for the credit.

Southwest points will never expire as long as you earn points every 24 months.

Transfer Chase Points To Southwest to maximize the value of your Companion Pass:

You can transfer points from the following Chase cards to Southwest at a 1:1 ratio. You can redeem those Southwest points and bring a companion with you for free!

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card has a 60K signup bonus for spending $4K in 3 months, earns 2.1 points per dollar on travel after the card's annual bonus, 3.1 points per dollar after the card's annual bonus on dining, streaming, and online groceries after the card's annual bonus, has a $50 hotel credit, can transfer all Chase points into miles, and points are worth at least 1.25 cents each for paid travel ($95 annual fee). Read more here.
• Chase Sapphire Reserve® has a 60K signup bonus for spending $4K in 3 months, earns 3 points per dollar on dining/travel, has a $300 travel credit, can transfer all Chase points into miles, and points are worth at least 1.5 cents each for paid travel ($550 annual fee with $300 travel credit). Read more here.
• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card has a 100K signup bonus for spending $8K in 3 months, and earns 3 points per dollar on up to $150K of annual spending on shipping, advertising, and travel, can transfer all Chase points into miles, and points are worth at least 1.25 cents each for paid travel ($95 annual fee). Read more here.

• Ink Business Cash® Credit Card has a 35K signup bonus for spending $3K in 3 months and another 40K signup bonus points for spending another $3K in 6 months for a total of 75,000 Chase Ultimate points, plus if you have a Chase business checking account open on the card's first anniversary you will get a 10% points bonus on all earnings from card spending, this card earns 5 points per dollar on the first $25,000 in combined purchases on cable, TV, telecom, cellular, and office supply stores, plus 2 points per dollar on dining and gas ($0 annual fee). Read more here.
• Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card has a 75K signup bonus for spending $6K in 3 months, and earns 1.5 points per dollar on business purchases ($0 annual fee). Read more here.
• Chase Freedom Flex has a 20K signup bonus, plus 5 points on rotating categories, 5 points per dollar on travel purchased through Chase Travel, and 3 points per dollar on dining and drugstores ($0 annual fee). Read more here.
• Chase Freedom Unlimited® has a signup bonus that earns an extra 1.5% cash back in the form of 1.5 points per dollar everywhere on up to $20K of spending during your first year, on top of at least 1.5 points per dollar everywhere, 5 points per dollar (marketed as 5% cash back) on travel purchased through Chase Travel, and 3 points per dollar on dining and drugstores ($0 annual fee). Read more here.

Business card information, benefits, and 5/24

Some Chase cards are subject to 5/24 restrictions, meaning that you might not be approved if you have been approved for 5 or more consumer credit cards in the past 24 months. Enforcement of 5/24 has been patchy for the past year and the only way to know if you can get approved is by trying to apply.

2 of the cards in the chart above are business cards, but you may already have a business that needs a card to keep track of expenses. For example if your name is Joe Smith and you sell items online, or if you have any other side business and want a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures you can open a business credit card for “Joe Smith” as the business. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that. Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field.

It’s important to just write your own name as the business name if you are just applying for your own small business as a Sole Proprietorship that doesn’t have any business paperwork.

It’s important to note that business cards from most banks, including Chase business cards, do not get added to your 5/24 count of recently opened cards. That’s because business cards from most banks don’t show up on your personal credit report and the 5/24 count is based off of your personal credit report.

Another benefit of business cards not reporting on your personal credit report is that your credit score won’t be hurt when you spend money on your cards. When you spend money on personal cards your score will be hurt even if you pay your bill on time. That’s because a whopping 30% of your credit score is based on credit utilization, so you lose lots of points even if you pay your bills before the statement due date. You can pay off your credit card bill before your statement close date to avoid that, but that takes effort and laying out money well before you have to. Additionally it’s good to have the statement close with a couple dollars to show the card is active and being paid every month. On business cards from banks like AMEX and Chase the spending is not reported on your personal credit report, so you can wait until the money is due without it having a negative effect on your score. That also means if you close the card, it won’t have an effect on your credit score.

As always, Southwest benefits include:

• 2 free checked bags per passenger.
• Free in-flight messaging.
• Free in-flight streaming entertainment, including movies, live TV, on-demand TV, music, destination guides, and games.
• No change fees to switch your flight. Whether you are on a paid or an award flight you can change without penalty!
• No cancellation fee to cancel your flight (you will get Southwest credit for the full amount paid, even on non-refundable wanna get away fares) or to cancel and redeposit your award flight.
• A refund of the fare or point difference if the price of your flight goes down after you buy it, just call to get the credit at any time before your flight!

Will you signup for any Southwest cards?