Southwest has long allowed people to spend their way to earning a companion pass, but they don’t allow you to earn A-List status solely from spending.
That restriction is being lifted for 2020, between the first day of your billing cycle ending in May 2020 and the last day of your billing cycle ending in December 2020.
- Southwest A-List gets you and everyone on your reservation free priority boarding, free same day standby, 25% flight bonus points, priority checkin and security, and a dedicated A-List phone line.
- Southwest A-List Preferred gets you and everyone on your reservation free priority boarding, free same day standby, free in-flight WiFi, 100% flight bonus points, priority checkin and security, and a dedicated A-List Preferred phone line.
Normally you can earn 1.5K A-List points for $10K spending on the $149/year Southwest Consumer Priority Card or the $199/year Southwest Business Performance card, with a cap of 15K A-List points.
For the rest of 2020 you can earn 3K A-List points for every $10,000 spent without limit on the $99/year Southwest Consumer Premier, $149/year Southwest Consumer Priority Card, the $99/year Southwest Business Premier, or the $199/year Southwest Business Performance card.
Of course you will also earn 1 Companion pass point for every $1 spent on all Southwest cards.
Southwest is also giving all members 15K A-List points and 25K Companion pass points for free this year if they had a Southwest mileage account as of 4/1/20. Those points will be added to your account automatically over the coming weeks.
- If you earn 35K A-List points you’ll have A-List status through 12/31/21.
- You’ll need to earn just 20K points this year thanks to the 15K gift, so $70K of spending on Southwest credit cards will earn this status. The signup bonus on a new card does not earn A-List points.
- If you earn 70K A-List points you’ll have A-List Preferred status through 12/31/21.
- You’ll need to earn just 55K points this year thanks to the 15K gift, so $190K of spending on Southwest credit cards will earn this status. The signup bonus on a new card does not earn A-List points.
- If you earn 100K points you’ll have companion pass status through 12/31/21.
- You’ll need to earn just 100K points this year thanks to the 25K gift, so $100K of spending on Southwest credit cards will earn this status. The signup bonus on a new card does count for Companion Pass.
- Companion pass status allows you to bring a companion with you for free on all of your Southwest flights, including paid and award flights.
In other words if you open a card like Southwest Consumer Premier or Southwest Consumer Priority Card you’ll get 40K points for spending $1,000 in 3 months. You’ll earn a companion pass good through 12/31/21 if you spend $60K and you’ll earn A-List status good through 12/31/21 if you spend $70K.
Will you try to spend your way to earning Southwest status?
HT: Gary
HT?
https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=116159.0
am I missing something 70K spending just to get priority seating that sounds crazy. Some of us would not even pay a dime to priority seating(spirit, bare economy) let alone 70K!
this must be the biggest pitfall I have seen
You would also be working to earn CP status at the same time.
cp pass you can get by signing up for 2 credit cards and spending like 8K not 70K
Sure, but not everyone is eligible to open 2 cards.
I get that it just seems to me that you could do a lot better spending 70K somewhere else maybe 2% card
Let’s say Southwest points are worth 1.6%.
Spend 70K and earn CP and they’re worth 3.2%. Plus you have A-List benefits like standby, better seats, etc.
Clearly not for all, but I wouldn’t write that off as worthless.
So they’re giving out points for free to every mileage member?!
Not redeemable points, just CP and A-List points.
25K Companion pass points for free this year if they had a Southwest mileage account as of 4/1/20.
Does this help in any way those who already have CP status?
2019 CP expire 6/30/21.
2020 CP expires 12/31/21.
but is the 25k relevant? these were extended anyway to those who had cp?
For someone that wants to earn a 2020 CP.
Since when does the signup bonus on a Southwest card not work for companion pass? Back in October you wrote that it does (in this post: https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/limited-time-offer-earn-60k-80k-southwest-points-5-southwest-cards/). Did something change since then?
I never said it didn’t.
Read this post again.
Thanks my apologies.
Just to clarify- spend will only work starting this month spend from earlier months won’t count. Thanks
Is there anyway to transfer Southwest points from my account to another account ?
hi dan
im trying to work towards SW CP currently have ~75k points. i can not open any more cards to get sign up bonus. i read on SW covid-19 updates that any voucher from a canceled flight can now be converted into RR points. Dan, do u think that those points (after converted) will be counted towards CP?? if they would, i would be willing to book a few dollars in flights and then cancel to convert into ~25k points to hit 100k. what do you say?
Try and let us know 🙂
Is this targeted? I logged into my SWN account and looked under promotions but I don’t see anything about getting an extra 1500 for $10K spend
https://www.southwest.com/TQPCM20/?