Earn Up To 120K Signup Bonus Points (And A Potential Unlimited Companion Pass) On The Chase Southwest Business Premier Card

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Earn Up To 120K Signup Bonus Points On The Chase Southwest Business Premier Card

Signup bonus:

Ending at 6:59am, the Chase Southwest Business Premier card has a signup bonus of 60K Southwest points for spending $3,000 in 3 months and an additional 60K Southwest points for spending another $12,000 in 9 months.

Annual fee: 

$99

Card features: 

• 6,000 points every card anniversary
• 25% off in-flight purchases
• 2 early-bird checkins per year
• 3 points per dollar spent on Southwest
• 2 points per dollar spent on local transit and commuting, and rideshare,
• No foreign transaction fees
• Having this card also allows for $500 in credits to transfer Southwest points between accounts. $99 annual fee.

Spend Threshold:

You’ll need to spend $15,000 on this card within 9 months to earn the full 120K signup bonus.

You can pay your federal taxes for a 1.85% fee. You’ll come out ahead as this card earns 2% cash back everywhere, in addition to the signup bonus.

My local natural gas company allows me to prepay up to $1,000 on a credit card for a $1.65 flat fee. That’s a great way to earn miles and help meet a spend threshold. My electricity supplier allows me to pay with a credit card for free as long as I am enrolled in autopay.

See this post for more ideas on meeting a credit card spend threshold.

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 be 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 reports of 5/24 rules being waived.

You can check your credit report for free at the federally authorized annualcreditreport.com to check how many accounts are shows 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 Chicago costs $82.98 or 5,257 points+$5.60. That’s a value of 1.46 cents per point.

A nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas costs $44.98 or 2,323 points+$5.60. That’s a value of 1.7 cents per point.

If you’ll redeem points for an average of 1.5 cents each, that makes an 60K signup bonus worth $900. If you qualify for a companion pass that number can double to a whopping $1,800 signup bonus.

Plus each Southwest cards comes with anniversary bonus points!

Companion pass and spend timing:

If you earn 135,000 points from signup bonuses, credit card spending, and Southwest flights in 2023 then your companion pass will be extended and will be valid through 12/31/24.

That means if you spend $15K on the card in 2023 before your December statement closes, you’ll get an unlimited-use companion pass through 12/31/24 as you’ll earn 120K signup bonus points and at least 15K points from spending.

Or you can delay spending for the 2nd half of the bonus to 2024 to help earn those points count towards earning a companion pass valid through 12/31/25.

If you hold a Southwest credit card on the first business day of the calendar year, you’ll also be awarded with 10,000 Companion Pass points.

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.

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!

25% cash back on in-flight purchases:

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

A-List Status:

You can now earn 1,500 tier points towards A-List status for every $10,000 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 

You can transfer points from the following Chase cards to Southwest at a 1:1 ratio.

If you have a companion pass, you’ll be able to pay for or redeem points for Southwest flights and bring a companion with you for free!

If you, a member in your household, or an authorized user has one of the following Chase cards, you can transfer points into miles:

• Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card® Card has a 60K signup bonus, earns 2.1 points per dollar on travel, 3.1 points per dollar on dining, streaming, and online groceries, has a $50 hotel credit, can transfer all Chase points into miles, and points are worth at least 1.3 cents each for paid travel or pay yourself back categories ($95 annual fee). Read more here.
• Chase Sapphire Reserve® has a 60K signup bonus, 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 or pay yourself back categories ($550 annual fee with $300 travel credit). Read more here.
• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card  earns 3 points per dollar 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 or pay yourself back categories ($95 annual fee). Read more here.

Chase no-annual fee cards that are fantastic for earning points, but require one of the cards above for points transfers include:

• Ink Business Cash® Credit Card has a 75K signup bonus and earns 5 points per dollar on cable, TV, telecom, cellular, office supply stores, and gift cards from 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 and earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere ($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 the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, and 3 points per dollar on dining and drugstores ($0 annual fee). Read more here.
• Chase Freedom Unlimited® has a signup bonus offering 3 points per dollar on up to $20K of spending in your first 12 month, afterwards earn at least 1.5 points per dollar everywhere, 5 points per dollar on travel purchased through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, and 3 points per dollar on dining and drugstores ($0 annual fee). Read more here.

Cash back on top of points

Chase business cards in the chart above are eligible for additional cash back via Visa Savings Edge.

That means you can earn points plus cash back at ParkWhiz, Budget, Chevron, AutoZone, Boost Mobile, MGM hotels, Wyndham hotels, and more.

Business card information, benefits, and 5/24

3 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.

All of the cards in this post are subject to 5/24 restrictions. However, 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?