[Update 6/13/19: they are now officially advertising this on the Chase website (ht VFTW). Added image and link below. At this point, I’d guess it’s only a matter of time before it rolls out to other card lines as well.]
Chase Southwest referral links now work to refer for any one of the 4 Southwest card versions, including the Plus, Premier, Priority, and the business card. Note: This only works for the new referral links generated from Chase as these links follow a new format. Old links will continue to work only for the single card you’re referring from (e.g. referrals from the Plus will only go to the Plus).
The signup bonus offer via referral link for the personal Southwest cards is only at 40,000 points – you’re better off using the public link which is currently at 60,000. However, the bonus for the business card is the exact same 60k/$3k via referral as it is directly. Thus, for example, if your spouse is signing up for the Southwest business card, and you have any one of the Southwest cards, you can get 70k points between the two of you, 60k from the signup bonus + 10k from the referral.
Always remember when calculating whether to use a referral link the fact that Chase will likely 1099 you if you’ve received more than $600 value from referrals across all your cards. Signup bonuses, other other hand, are not taxable.
Overall, terrific news that Chase is moving toward this family-style referrals. We saw American Express begin allowing family referrals, and soon-after they moved to allow universal referrals. Hopefully Chase will allow other cross-family referrals, or even institute a universal referral system like Amex. It seems the refer-a-friend method is viable and possibly cheaper than the acquisition cost from other methods.
Hat tip to SouthFayetteFan on r/churningÂ
