Author Topic: Southwest Companion Pass accomplished on Jan 9th. Good till 12/31/23  (Read 867 times)

Jack0Life

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Just in time for our flight to Utah on 1/11.
I achieved Companion Pass back in 2020 in March by getting both the personal and business Southwest CC but we all know how 2020 turned out. At least we used the crap of it in 2021. If you don't know what companion pass is, it's possibly the best perk in air travel. Basically I book a flight with cash or points and my designated companion(my wife) flies for free.
This time it's my wife turn and she achieved Companion Pass on 1/9 so we are good to go until 2023.

PVD_Kev

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Re: Southwest Companion Pass accomplished on Jan 9th. Good till 12/31/23
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2022, 08:58:42 AM »
Congrats! I am a Southwest CC holder and (fairly) dedicated customer although I do not have business travel anymore.  I have never come close to getting that companion pass.  Do you basically put every single household expense on your card? Pay your mortgage on it, etc?

charis

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Re: Southwest Companion Pass accomplished on Jan 9th. Good till 12/31/23
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2022, 09:10:25 AM »
How did you achieve this? I thought this was pretty difficult to get in recent years.

DadJokes

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Re: Southwest Companion Pass accomplished on Jan 9th. Good till 12/31/23
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2022, 09:13:13 AM »
I did the same in the beginning of 2020.

2020 & 2021 were pretty terrible years to have a companion pass for. We barely got to use it. I hope that you get more use out of it than we did!

Jack0Life

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Re: Southwest Companion Pass accomplished on Jan 9th. Good till 12/31/23
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2022, 09:55:31 AM »
[SHORT VERSION] I signed my wife up for the personal and business card. The personal gave her 50k and the business gave her 80k. That's 130k total which is enough to earn companion pass. The total you see if another 20k points by referring someone and spending. So pretty much $7k spent in Dec and then Jan closing statements hit, all the points came in to earn CP.

Back at beginning of 2020 when Southwest had the promotion on 80k points on personal cards, I was reading how people were able to get Companion Pass(achieved by earning 125K points) by getting both the personal and business.
I dove in and apply for the business first. I knew if I can get the business, I'll be approved for the personal. Applied as a sole proprietor for business for got the business. Then I got the personal. Bonus on the Business was 50k + 80k personal = 130k which qualifies for the CP. i got this around early April 2020 but we all know how 2020 went. Fast forward to 2021 and we pretty much abused our CP. Flew everywhere and wife flew for free. Can't believe that I went so long without knowing this.
At the end of 2021 I'm like "how am I going to earn CP again" ? As luck would have it Southwest had a promotion of 50k bonus for spending $2k + extra 50k for spending another $10k. Basically spending $12k in 12 months for 100k.
This is the most simplest way to earn CP. Spending 12k will get you at least 12k(spending) + 100k(bonus) = 112k. You need to figure out how to spend another $13k to get to 125k points for CP. Worst case scenario, you have the entire 2022 to earn CP that's good for 2023.
I wanted to earn it much faster because I have a lot of trips early 2022. My plan to sign my wife up and then refer someone to get a Southwest CC the 20k referral bonus. 112k+20k= 132k which earn CP. So I was able to do all that and it's just a matter of spending $12k in Dec so all the points will hit in Jan closing statement. Now trying to spend $12k in dec is still a daunting task.
While trying to spend in Dec I figure I sign her up for the business card too, If approved I can spend less and get the CP. She got approved. So now I only need to spend $2k on the personal and get 50k points, Spend $5k on the business and get 80k points.
The $2k on the personal was easy but I took a small hit and paid my property tax with the Business card. Yeah I paid the 2.19% CC surcharge but since I earn 1% on the CC, the surcharge is more like 1.19% which is about $50. Already made that $50 back because I canceled my own ticket and jumped on my wife's ticket as her companion for FREE.

Sorry that's a lot of typing but I had to plan quite a bit to get CP this early,
« Last Edit: January 10, 2022, 10:02:52 AM by Jack0Life »