We’ve talked about the Southwest companion pass extensively before. It lets a companion fly for free (apart from a small 9/11 security charge) for the rest of the calendar year, plus an additional calendar year when you earn more than 110,000 qualifying points.
The easiest way to get this many points is by signing up for two Southwest credit cards when they have a 50,000 point sign up bonus. The minimum spend is $2,000 on each card and they earn 1x points per spend, this means that you’re still going to be 6,000 points short.
There is a few different ways to earn these 6,000 extra points, but I was recently told about another way that is free and easy and should work for most people. Basically what you do is simple:
- Wait until you’ve been approved for at least 60 days
- Call up the number on the back of your credit card
- Ask to be transferred to the retention department
- Be polite and respectful
- Make a bit of small talk
- Ask the retention specialist if there are any retention offers on your account
- They should be able to find an offer for 3,000 points on each Southwest card
This doesn’t work every time, but the people I spoke to that have tried it have all had some level of success (a few were only able to get 3,000 points on one card and not on the other). PedroNY shared this tip in his awesome post titled “Retention Bonus Rules & Tips For Each Card Issuer – Get More Than One Bonus Each Year“. I’d strongly recommend reading that post and putting the tips into action, I personally had no idea that it was worth calling so often but I’ve been able to get a lot additional bonuses because of it.
Make sure you stay polite, don’t forget your please and thank yous and remain friendly even if they come back with no offer. Just because an offer shows up on your account, doesn’t mean the retention specialist has to extend it to you. The easiest way get somebody to do something nice for you, is to be nice yourself. If you try this, please share your experiences in the comments.
