The Southwest Companion pass can be amazing value depending on your travel plans (and how much they fit in with taking a companion for next to free). After March 31st, 2017 transfers from hotel partners (& car rentals, e-Rewards, e-Miles, Valued Opinion, Diners Club) will no longer count towards the 110,000 point requirement for the card.
The reason why readers will care is because two of the most popular ways to earn the pass include hotel points:
- Sign up for two Chase cards (100,000 points) & then transfer hotel points to reach 110,000 points
- Redeem Marriott points for a flights + hotel package
If you’re thinking about doing either of the above, you’re running out of time.
I did my conversion from Marriott to SW and it took 5 days. Booked the 7 night hotel package Saturday 3/11, SW points didn’t post until Thursday 3/16. CP showed up in my account 3/17.
DONT WAIT. You are running out of time.
Can you get the companion pass if you never had sw credit card? Do i just enroll in the rapid rewards before i get the 7night package from marriot?
Yes, just enroll.
Just got mine today! Initiated it on Sunday 3/19/17. Didn’t take that long at all.
too bad I won’t apply for the SW cards until a few days after 🙁
As long as all the 110,000 points hit in one year, it doesn’t matter what order or which day you get which points.
so if I don’t have the cards yet what can I do beforehand to get the points? I can still try to transfer whatever UR I have to RR and it’ll still count?
no directly from ur to southwest…that wont count rather from ur to marriot to southwest…or spg to marriot to southwest
I did 100,000 Chase UR -> HYATT.
50,000 HYATT -> Southwest (30,000 SWA)
50,000 HYATT -> Southwest (30,000 SWA)
Worked perfectly for 60,000 SWA points but you need to act right now. It took about a week for the points + bonuses to all post
thanks, I’ll make a Hyatt account now and do this
alright made a Hyatt account and set up my UR (only had like 3k lmao) to go there. Once it’s in Hyatt, how do I get it to Southwest? is there a way to do that on Hyatt? can’t find it. thanks for your help!!
@ eclipsor
It’s in there somewhere. Try looking under airline partners. You do the transfer within your Hyatt account and you will be prompted for the SW FF# and that account’s last name if I recall correctly.
minimum to transfer form Hyatt is 5k, so I transferred my 3k there for no reason :(((( ugh wish I had more UR. oh well, thanks anyways for your help.
Didn’t know you had a mere 3k. This is an situation you could consider buying 2k in Hyatt points but I don’t see you coming out ahead as the points transferred out are devalued. Better off saving those Hyatt points and your money. Sorry to hear it didn’t work out as you were hoping.
Would you please explain why 100K UR to 60K SWA is a good deal?
Yes I understand that now those 60K could be counted towards the Companion Pass… but you still need another 50K… and you already lost 40K URs (compared to direct UR -> SWA transfer… ) and that is a lot of flying for my taste. You need to make 4-5 if not more roundtrip flights with your companion to overcome the loss of those 40K points (I am estimating using their lower points prices for common destinations).
Why not apply to 2 Rapid Reward cards…especially that the business one gives 60K signup bonus now, which makes 2 cards enough for CP. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts.
Can I person have two CPs?
No. If you currently have the CP through 2017 and you earn 110k qualifying points this year, your CP will be extended through 2018. I just finished doing that with a Marriott hotel + air transfer.
Good reminder. I’ve seen varying reports of how long the air+hotel package points take to transfer. The phone rep told me 3 days, but mine just hit in under 24 hours.
+1, got my CP the next day. Just that booking my stay using the package took a while as all CSR’s were not aware on how to use it.