I just finished helping a friend get their first Companion Pass this week, good for the rest of this year and all of next year, and it reminded me of two questions I had received several times in the past. While I hope most Companion Pass veterans understand these concepts already, I wanted to make sure all of my readers understood these key points.
Misconception #1 – You can’t spend any earned points until after you earn the Companion Pass
This one is pretty easy to understand why it may confuse some people. After all, you essentially have “two” points balances running simultaneously: your earned, redeemable points and your counter towards earning Companion Pass. The important thing to understand here is that they are completely independent. One going up or down has no impact on the other.
Generally speaking, 1 earned point will increase the balance of both by 1 point except for a few unique cases where some earned bonus points only count for one or the other. For the most common earning activities of flying and credit card spend/sign-up bonuses, they count for both. The two major exceptions to be aware of are that point transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards do not count towards Companion Pass qualification and that simply holding one of the Southwest credit cards gives you a 10,000 point “boost” towards Companion Pass each year.
Let’s look at a simple example of someone starting the year with a balance of 0 points in both categories. This person then flies a paid flight and earns 5000 points, takes out a Southwest credit card with a 50k point bonus and $3k minimum spend. What will they have in their point balances?
Rapid Rewards (redeemable points): 5k from flying, 50k from the card sign-up bonus and 3k for the card spend = 58k points
Companion Pass: 5k from flying, 50k from the card sign-up bonus, 3k for the card spend and 10k from the Companion Pass boost = 68k points out of the 135k needed to earn Companion Pass.
Now, here is where the confusion can come in. Let’s say you now redeem 50k points for an award ticket. What would your point balances look like after?
Rapid Rewards: 58k balance – 50k redemption = 8k remaining points
Companion Pass: 68k points earned, no change based on the award redemption. This is the key takeaway – reducing your redeemable point balance has no impact on your points earned towards Companion Pass.
Misconception #2 – You can only book the Companion Pass holder’s flight with their points
This question came from a friend previously. They had flights booked with one family member’s points (let’s call that person P2) for the entire family. Another family member then earned Companion Pass (we will call that person P1). They thought it would be necessary to cancel P1’s flight and book it again with P1’s points before adding P2 back as a companion.
The key point here is that it does not matter how the Companion Pass holder’s flight is booked. As soon as they have a ticket, they can add their companion for just the cost of taxes for that flight, assuming at least one seat is available for sale. In this example, P1’s flight could have been booked with any of these methods and the companion could be added:
- Cash
- P1’s points
- P2’s points
- Anyone else’s points
- P1’s flight credits, LUV vouchers, gift cards, etc
TL;DR: Southwest Rapid Rewards points earned and redeemed are independent of earnings towards Companion Pass, so spending earned points will not impact Companion Pass progress. Once you have earned Companion Pass, it does not matter how the pass holder’s ticket is purchased. The Companion can be added regardless of who’s cash or points paid for the ticket.
