Only the business card is still offering the increased sign up bonus. Never miss another deal again by signing up for notifications
Reposting due to the fact that these are supposed to end tomorrow. It looks like the Plus card didn’t end on the 1st as expected though so who knows if they will actually end tomorrow or not.
Currently, all three Southwest cards have a 60,000 points bonus. According to multiple sources (here and here), the bonus will be reduced after October 4, 2017. Update: Reportedly, the business version 60k bonus is not going away any time soon.
Sometimes, there are still non-affiliate links which continue working for a while after the affiliate links are removed, in any case it’s fair to say the offer is likely on it’s way out. After the change, it might be a 50,000 or 25,000 points bonus.
- Southwest Plus personal card which comes with a $69 annual fee
- Southwest Premier personal card which comes with a $99 annual fee
- Southwest Premier business card which comes with a $99 annual fee
Getting two of these cards now nets you the Companion Pass since you’ll meet the 110,000 threshold with the two bonuses. Check out our post on Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Southwest Companion Pass to learn more.
Conveniently, the timing for the offer end date of October 4 should be able to work out quite nicely…just make sure to do it right.
The Companion Pass gives you an entire calendar year with the benefit, and if you reach the threshold in middle of the calendar year, you’ll get that entire year and the next. In our case, the goal is to push off getting the bonus points until after January 1, 2018, thus giving you almost two years with the Companion Pass. To accomplish this, apply for the card/s the last day or two before the offer ends on October 4th. Then, be sure not to meet your $2,000 minimum spend requirement immediately.
If you meet the spend threshold on the card near the end of the three months allowed, it should work out that the 110,000 points threshold will be met a bit after January 1, 2018, and then you’ll get almost two full years with the Pass. If, however, you’d meet the minimum spend immediately, you’ll hit 110,000 points sometime in November or December, and you’ll get the rest of 2017 and 2018 for the Pass. Chase Southwest points post to your account when the credit card statement closes; if your statement closes on December 15th, finish the $2k spend after that date, and you’ll see the points mid-January. At that time, you’ll get the Companion Pass as well.
Note: Occasionally, the first statement generates early, after maybe 20 days or so. This won’t matter. You get three full months (around 90 days) to meet the spend. If you apply on October 3rd, you’ll have until around December 31. As long as your statement does not close that day, you’ll be fine.
In fact, Chase unofficially gives 115 days to meet the minimum spend requirement. It’s a bit risky to rely on that, though, since the terms state 3 months. Once you have the cards, you can Message the bank to find out the exact date you have to meet the spend requirement. In any case, we should be able to time it right with the timeline given, regardless.
Remember, most of us are not eligible for the Southwest cards due to 5/24. Here are 26 Things to Know about Chase Credit Cards.
Just got my companion pass email, thank you guys for this post!!!
Applied to two Southwest cards with 60K offer in October 2017 and it worked out just like you said it would. Now I have the pass for my SO, so he can come along for free when I go on business trips! Yayyy! 🙂
I’m hoping for some advice. I just applied for the SW biz card, and got a message that they need more time to review my application. Should I call and check on the application or just wait and see what happens? This is my first biz card application, so it’s a new experience for me. If I should call, do I call recon or is there a different number? Thanks!
So what happened?
Well, my first app was declined, I called recon and was over 5/24 due to a dumb mistake on my part of getting a Dillards store card a few months ago. Rep said since it was a wells fargo dillards card he couldn’t override it. But I tried again in dec as an old card fell off, and I just found out I was approved! It wasn’t an instant approval which made me nervous, but I called to check on the app over lunch and was approved a few days ago! So excited!
I may have just been approved for a SW personal card while already at 5/24. Hoping the card doesn’t get cancelled before I can receive and activate it! 9/30 – I am 5/24 including an authorized user account I have never used so 4/24 primary. I applied for SW Business Premier card. Got email that I would receive a response in 30 days. Called recon number and could not get them to approve me (all my cards have been opened in the last 6mo). Even with moving credit from my CSP they weren’t willing to because of recency of accounts. I was able to explain away the auth user account so they were OK with # of accounts. 9/30 – Later in day I made a rash decision to apply for SW Personal Premier, thinking I could MS my way to CP early in 2018. Got email. Too late to call recon. 10/2 – Called Business recon number and got them to approve me by shifting $8K from my CSP CL to SW card. I then called the Personal recon number and early on proactively said I would be willing to shift some of my CL from CSP to my SW Personal Premier. Rep said “No problem, let me work on that and verify for you.” I was on hold for maybe 15sec and he came back to say I am all approved and they moved $8K from my CSP CL to my SW Personal Premier. I was a little suspicious that the $8K was the same amount so I asked them to clarify the exact card they were talking about and they confirmed it was Chase Southwest Premier Rapid Rewards. I said OK and thought that was that. 10/9 – I received the Chase SW Personal Premier in the mail, activated it. 10/11 – All along I had been concerned the Business card approval that I was given was actually for the Personal card, since when I called the business recon number, I assumed that’s what we were talking about but I never had them confirm the exact card name. After not getting the business card in the mail, I finally called into the business recon number again and they confirmed I was denied, and no amount of moving CL, increasing my income (wife got a new job with raise since my initial app) would allow them to approve me. I’m dejected, thinking I royally screwed things up by not just applying for both personal cards on the same day instead of biz+personal. 10/11 – I’m a real 5/24 now while looking like 6/24 due to auth user account. On a whim, I figured why not just apply for the SW Personal Plus card, maybe I can catch a break with recon and all I have to lose is a hard pull. I applied, got email, and instantly called recon. I got the right guy. Call took 30 minutes, mostly on hold, but after answering a bunch of questions… Read more »
When I was reading your story I was very surprised to see that they moved CL from CSP (which is a personal card) to your SW Biz (which is business card). They never do that as those are 2 completely separate profiles… but the later explained it all.
The CL realocations (as far as I know) are possible only within the same profile. I doubt you can even do it between 2 businesses even if you are the owner of both.
Regarding your approval, I hope it sticks.. as there were cases reported when people were approved with 5+/24. It is a hard rule, but still can be overruled… as a good example – in-branch paper applications for Ink Plus and Ink Preferred with Business Relationship Manager.
Good Luck!
I’m hoping someone can verify my logic – I am currently at 4/24 (4 new cards since 11/1/15), but will drop to 3/24 on 11/2/17 (correct?) I was considering applying for the Chase biz card for the 60k bonus now, but not reaching the spend requirement until 1/1/18 – 1/11/18. Then sometime after 11/2/17 applying for the Chase Premier (already have the plus), and making sure to meet the spend requirement after 2018. Even if bonus is only 40k, I would be close to 110k for CP and could work toward getting to it for remainder of 2018 and 2019. Does this sound like it will work? The other thing I would need to watch out for is I’ve received the Premier bonus, I believe in Dec. 2015 so I just need to make sure to not reach that spend requirement until at least Jan. 2018 to be eligible, correct?
If you received the bonus in dec 2015, I believe you aren’t eligible to open a new account to receive a bonus until dec 2017. Others correct me if I’m wrong but I believe it’s when you open the account not when you reach the min spend
2 points.
If you opened your first card on 11/1/2015 although on 11/2/2017 it will be 2 years, but I think Chase goes monthly when they count it. So technically it will fall off on 12/01 from their 24 month count.
But this really does not matter, as 3/24 vs 4/24 does not make any difference in terms of this rule blocking you from getting new cars. There could be other issues, but not that rule. So apply for the biz card whenever you want it. Even if you apply now you will have until the end of Jan / begining of Feb to complete the spending, it does not have to be done first 10 day of Jan (subject of verification with Chase via SM)
Regarding your Premier card. I think @Pat S is right. I would play safe and would not apply until 24 months passed from the month I got the bonus (not the card was open)… especially that now there is no really need to rush. 40K is unlikely to drop, and even if it does usually it comes back to 40K pretty quickly. Also there is a bunch of referral links around (I have one myself) which will give you 40K bonus. So, assuming that you can always count on 40K bonus why would you rush and apply for Premier now? I would wait til the beginning of the next year in hope that the bonus goes back to 50K at least, and then your 60K biz + that 50K would put you right to the companion pass….
Please correct me if I am wrong in my strategy…
The only time it would not work if you have travel plans for the beginning of the year, and need your CP ASAP…
Good Luck
Thanks, I think you’re both right, no need to rush right now for the premier. I’ll wait until wait till Dec or possibly Jan for it. I typically book flights for June, but that should still give me time to book. Thank you!
One more tip… If you have enough points (and no CP) then book your tickets ASAP as they can go up in price. And hopefully you will have enough points with 60K biz bonus (which you will get in Jan or so)…
Then as long as you can get your CP at least a day before your travel starts you should just cancel your “paid with points” ticket for your companion (you will get your points back), and immediately get it as a CP ticket. This way you ensure the lowest price for the rest of your group.
Or even better, (if the flight is not sold out) book your CP ticket first and then cancel the paid with points ticket. If you have it on the same itinerary as the other tickets you would need to call SW to separate the tickets, but it is a simple 5 min call. Or you can buy it separately (just to hold the place in case if the flight sells out) and then you can cancel it online yourself.
The great thing about SW – you get your award or CP ticket all the time as long as there are seats on the flight.
With this approach you can buy yourself way more time to work towards your CP.
Good Luck.
Thank you for the tips! I was wondering if that might be possible, but wasn’t sure how it would work to cancel and rebook with CP. I love how flexible SW is with point purchases!
DoC, I have a very interesting DP… not directly related to SW bonus, but to the Chase bonus in general.
A friend of mine recently got Ink Preferred card and was working on the min spend. To remind others the required spending on that card is $5K to get the bonus. By the end of the 1st billing cycle the spend was in the range of $2K+ with total points around 3.5K, by the end of 2nd cycle the spend was around $4K with total points around 6K…. guess what… the bonus posted on that 2nd statement. Way early!!!
Extra points came from the spend on the special categories (such as travel, mobile services, etc..)
The only explanation I can come up with is that 5K points triggered that bonus instead of $5K spend. The spend was way below required $5K… and not just couple of hundred dollars short, $800+ short.
We do not know for sure why did it happen, and normally it is not a problem at all, but here, for people trying to time the bonus correctly for SW cards that would be a big problem. It is everybody’s guess how to interpret that information, and how to apply it to your SW spending, but I would probably leave at least $1K to spend in January 2018, and make sure that earned points do not come close to 2,000 (personal) or 3,000 (biz) as well. This should be reasonably easy to do since the bonus categories on SW cards include pretty much just the spend on SW flights (please correct me if I am wrong)… but for people who were planning to pay for SW flights it may be a good idea to monitor both the spending and earned points.
Good Luck
Offer over not available for both personal cards.now normal bonus is 40000 on 1000 spend
So it looks like the offer is still out there, correct?
Correct
Applied for both personal cards today close to the same time – got approved for one, the second one said “Received your information”. Haven’t received an email or anything on whether the second is pending, approved or whatever? Has this occurred to anyone before and if so, any recommendations on steps? Should I reach out via SM, call, apply again?
Thanks in advance!
I had the same situation: applied for both, autoaproved for one. Called the recon line and was told I was extended the max amount of credit already, then they offered to move a credit limit from other cards to this one to allow it to open. I agreed and got approved for the second card right then.
Did they ask your friend why they wanted both the Plus and Premier cards? I’m not sure what to say if they ask this.
You can always say something around wanting to keep certain expenses separate and having different cards is the easiest way. I don’t think they really care too much to be honest.
This guy did care, he really wanted to know why I applied for both SW cards at the same time. I said to separate expenses, he said yeah but you also have a business card for that. I said well I really like SW I fly with them a lot. Still denied.
Was at 4/24, so applied for biz card and got the message to call in. Didn’t have time to wait and hope they approve so i called in and had to answer all kinds of questions about my business. After getting approval there, i immediately applied for the Plus personal card and received the 30-day message. Called right back and shifted some CL over from another card to get it approved as well. SM on Plus card gave me 1/24/18 as my min spend date.
+1. Exactly the same situation (applied 10 days ago). The only difference I have not called in on Plus yet. Decided to wait to allow myself more time in January to do the spending. Hope for the same outcome with shifting CL.