I thought the whole airline points thing was a hoax to get you to be more brand loyal. But as of today, my views have changed.
This is the story of how my husband earned a Southwest Companion Pass without flying any flights.(You will see below that he redeemed some of his points for a guys trip to Spring Training!)
I hope it doesn't sound like bragging. One of my friends asked me to share how I did it. We really wanted to travel more but it wasn't in the budget. I started reading some travel hacking blogs and came up with a plan to earn the Southwest Companion Pass.
The Southwest Companion Pass allows you to take a designated person with you whether you are redeeming miles or paying for your flight. So both of you can fly free.
There are no restrictions on the flights. There just needs to be an open seat. And it is good for the rest of the year in which you earn it in, plus the following year. Mike earned it in April of 2012 so it is good through December of 2013.
One final disclaimer. If you are tempted to overspend if you have credit cards in your pocket or you are going to be refinancing your home soon, do not apply for credit cards. They will cause a small dip in your credit rating and I don't want to encourage anyone to go into debt.
Here are the credit cards we used. I'm not sure which credit card deals are still available.
1.Southwest Visa-yearly fee is approx $85 but that got us 50,000 points after the first purchase and about $800 in free airfare. Well worth the $85 fee.
2. Chase Sapphire Card 50,000 points after a spend of $3000 in the first 5 months. No annual fee the first year. We went from spending using an all cash budget to putting everything on the credit card.
important: In order for these points to count toward the Southwest Companion Pass we had to move them to Marriott and then to Southwest. If we moved them straight to Southwest, they would not have counted.
3. Marriott Visa card that is free for the first year. The bonus on this card was 40,000 points, one free night and a $75 credit after the first purchase.
What we already had:
-10,000 Mariott Points from previous vacations
-Some Misc Hyatt points that were about to expire so we transferred them to Southwest
-Some spending on the Southwest Credit Card
Please note-the Southwest Companion Pass requires 110,000 points. I had to transfer somewhere around 110,000 Mariott points to get only 45,000 Southwest points. But for me it was worth it.
So where should we go?
Please share your favorite spots on the West Coast.
This is the story of how my husband earned a Southwest Companion Pass without flying any flights.(You will see below that he redeemed some of his points for a guys trip to Spring Training!)
I hope it doesn't sound like bragging. One of my friends asked me to share how I did it. We really wanted to travel more but it wasn't in the budget. I started reading some travel hacking blogs and came up with a plan to earn the Southwest Companion Pass.
The Southwest Companion Pass allows you to take a designated person with you whether you are redeeming miles or paying for your flight. So both of you can fly free.
There are no restrictions on the flights. There just needs to be an open seat. And it is good for the rest of the year in which you earn it in, plus the following year. Mike earned it in April of 2012 so it is good through December of 2013.
One final disclaimer. If you are tempted to overspend if you have credit cards in your pocket or you are going to be refinancing your home soon, do not apply for credit cards. They will cause a small dip in your credit rating and I don't want to encourage anyone to go into debt.
Here are the credit cards we used. I'm not sure which credit card deals are still available.
1.Southwest Visa-yearly fee is approx $85 but that got us 50,000 points after the first purchase and about $800 in free airfare. Well worth the $85 fee.
2. Chase Sapphire Card 50,000 points after a spend of $3000 in the first 5 months. No annual fee the first year. We went from spending using an all cash budget to putting everything on the credit card.
important: In order for these points to count toward the Southwest Companion Pass we had to move them to Marriott and then to Southwest. If we moved them straight to Southwest, they would not have counted.
3. Marriott Visa card that is free for the first year. The bonus on this card was 40,000 points, one free night and a $75 credit after the first purchase.
What we already had:
-10,000 Mariott Points from previous vacations
-Some Misc Hyatt points that were about to expire so we transferred them to Southwest
-Some spending on the Southwest Credit Card
So where should we go?
Please share your favorite spots on the West Coast.
Wow Jana, if you didn't write this... I wouldn't believe it was Possible! Kudos and thank you for sharing! Enjoy your travels!!
ReplyDeleteWe have since traveled to Phoenix, Washington DC, Las Vegas, San Francisco and we are off to Denver in a few days.
ReplyDeleteOur pass is good until December 2014 and we still plan to go to Austin, Seattle, Chicago and Portland.
So far we have only spent $5 per flight for taxes and occasionally we pay for early check in.