There’s no better deal in the points-and-miles world than getting the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass if you do a lot of travel within the US, the Caribbean, and Central America.

The Companion Pass allows a companion to travel with you for free (plus taxes/fees) on any flight you take on Southwest, whether you pay for your flight with money or points. You book a flight, you go into your reservation and click “Add a Companion,” and then your companion gets their own free ticket on the same flight. And the astounding thing about this, and what makes this such a valuable benefit, is that you can do this as many times as you want for up to almost TWO YEARS. And if that weren’t great enough, you can even switch who your companion is up to three times in a year.

The Companion Pass is a classic Southwest program and they’ve offered it every year since basically forever. Occasionally they also offer little mini-versions of a promotional Companion Pass where you just have to book a flight within a certain timeframe or get one particular credit card and you earn a pass for a limited period. Those are helpful sometimes. But nothing beats the classic get-it-for-almost-two years Companion Pass. So that’s the one I’m explaining here. For now, just pretend those odd promotional Companion Passes don’t exist. When I say Companion Pass, I mean the classic. That’s the one you want.

My husband got the Companion Pass several years ago, in a period where we had planned to do a lot of domestic travel, and it was mind-blowingly cool. He designated me as his companion, and then he’d book a flight for himself and our two kids and later add me on with my own companion reservation. Sometimes he paid for his flight and the kids’ flights with money and sometimes they’d be paid for with Rapid Rewards points, but I flew for free every time. We used our Companion Pass to fly to Oregon, North Carolina, Chicago, and Seattle (back when we lived in Houston) and got more than $1,000 of airfare covered for free.

If you just need a spouse or a friend as your companion, you might only need one Companion Pass. If you have kids and a two-parent household, both parents might consider each trying to get a Companion Pass, so two kids could each be one parent’s companion and both fly for free. You can figure out how the Companion Pass will work best for you and then strategize how to get the most value out of it for your needs.

Imagine flying somewhere and it’s half the cost you’d expect because one of you is flying for free! And it’s good for all Southwest flights, so that includes flights to Mexico, Aruba, Hawai’i, Costa Rica, and everywhere else Southwest flies.

In addition to that, because you can use the Companion Pass on award flights, too, that means all the Rapid Rewards points you earn to get the Companion Pass in the first place can be used to get free award flights for the main traveler, too—not just the companion. So you and your companion could both be flying for free.

Okay, so have I convinced you that you need this? Is your next question, “How do I earn this Companion Pass?” Let’s get into it. (And if you want to skip all this explanation and get my free Southwest Companion Pass timeline/cheat-sheet, sign up for my email list and you’ll get access the next time I send out a newsletter. It’s much simpler, pared-down, and has a helpful timeline to follow to make sure you do everything right.)

How to earn a Companion Pass

There are two ways to earn the Companion Pass: flying 100 Southwest flight segments within a calendar year or earning 135,000 qualifying points within a calendar year.

This post explains the second way: earning 135,000 qualifying points within a calendar year. (I’m guessing most of us aren’t going to be flying 100 Southwest flights in a year.)

The main event: you get two credit cards

The primary way you’ll be able to rack up a ton of qualifying points is by opening two Southwest credit cards and meeting the spending requirements to unlock the bonus Rapid Rewards points for each of them.

How are “qualifying points” different from Rapid Rewards points?

Qualifying points count toward your progress in earning the Companion Pass. You can’t redeem qualifying points for free award flights. Rapid Rewards points count as qualifying points only if the Rapid Rewards points come from certain sources: credit-card bonuses, credit-card spending, Southwest shopping portal spending, Rocketmiles bookings, partner hotel and car-rental bookings, Rapid Rewards dining, and actual Southwest flights. Rapid Rewards points don’t count as qualifying points if they’re transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards, if you bought the points, if the points were given or transferred to you, etc. That’s why people can’t just transfer a bunch of Ultimate Rewards points from Chase and earn the Companion Pass that way. Check Southwest’s full list to understand qualifying and non-qualifying points.

Most people choose to open one personal Southwest card and one business card, but you can also open two different Southwest business cards and that will work, too. Just holding one Southwest credit card earns you 10,000 qualifying points (not to be used to get award flights, but just to get you down to the point where you only have to earn 125,000 qualifying points, not 135,000). Holding more than one Southwest card doesn’t earn you any more than the basic 10,000 qualifying points—you get 10,000 qualifying points for being a cardholder but that’s not multiplied the more cards you hold. So in effect, you don’t have to earn 135,000 qualifying points; you only need to earn 125,000 points and the extra 10,000 Southwest gives you for being a cardholder take you to 135,000.

In the fall, the bonuses on the Southwest cards are usually high enough that getting two cards will get you to 125,000 points when you count the actual spending that you need to put on the cards to earn the bonuses in the first place. For example, if one card’s bonus was 60,000 points after $3,000 in spending and another card’s bonus was 70,000 points after $3,000 in spending, you’ll have earned at least 136,000 points just from the spending you’ve put on the cards to meet those bonus requirements. If that’s the case, then you’re golden and that’s all you need to do to get to the all-important 125,000 qualifying points.

Extra spending for any additional needed points

If for some reason the bonuses on the Southwest cards aren’t quite enough to get you to 125,000 qualifying points, some easy extra ways to get there are just putting more spending on your cards, shopping through the Southwest portal, or booking partner hotel stays or rental cars. Those activities all earn qualifying points. (And of course, flying.) I can’t remember a fall season when the card bonuses weren’t high enough to earn the Companion Pass outright without having to worry about extra spending, for what it’s worth. This is just knowledge to keep in the back of your mind just in case.

Timing is EVERYTHING!

The most important thing to know about getting the Companion Pass—and the thing that’s the easiest to screw up!—is the timing.

Southwest’s rule is that you earn the Companion Pass when you’ve earned 135,000 qualifying points within a single calendar year. And then when you earn the pass, you keep it for the entire rest of that year AND the full year after that.

So if you were to earn the Companion Pass in December 2023, you’d have it for the rest of 2023 (the calendar year you earned the points in) and all of 2024. I mean, that’s cool, but that’s only one year and a smidge of whatever’s left in December. Why not earn it for almost two years instead?

If you were to earn the Companion Pass in January 2024, you’d have it for the rest of 2024 AND all of 2025. That’s 23 months! And you can use it as often as you like throughout that entire period.

The cardinal rule of Companion Pass timing

Most people want the Companion Pass for almost two years. I’m going on the assumption that you do, too. So how can you make sure you earn the Companion Pass in January 2024 (so you have it for 2024 & 2025) and not accidentally earn it in December 2023 (so you have it for December and 2024 only)?

Make sure you don’t actually meet the full spending requirements for either card’s sign-up bonus until January 1 or after.

Let me repeat, because this is critical. You cannot earn any sign-up bonuses before January 1. Not just on one card, not at all. Not on either card.

You can make progress on meeting the minimum spending requirements on both cards all up through December 31, but don’t actually spend the full amounts required to unlock the sign-up bonus until the new year.

If you want to get technical, you could theoretically spend enough to unlock the bonus points as soon as your December credit-card statements close, because the points wouldn’t technically be earned until the next statement-closing date, which would be in January, but honestly I wouldn’t play with technicalities on this! Just wait until January 1 or after for peace of mind.

And keep in mind that any spending you do before you meet the bonus-spend requirement is going to count for the year in which those credit-card statements close. For example, if you need to spend $3,000 to get a 60,000-point bonus, and you spend $1,500 in November, $1,000 in December, and $500 in January, the $2,500 you spent in November and December will be counted as earning 2,500 2023 points, and the $500 in January will be counted as 500 2024 points. If you achieve the 60,000-point bonus in January, then you’ll have 60,500 qualifying points that will be counted as 2024 points.

Other important things to know

5/24 rule. Southwest’s credit cards are issued by Chase, and we all know that Chase has the 5/24 rule—they won’t approve you for a new credit card if you’ve opened 5 or more cards from any issuer within the past year. (And most business cards don’t count against that total, though some do.) So in order to earn the Companion Pass by meeting the spending requirements on two cards, you’ll need to be at 4/24 or under. If you’re at 4/24, you’ll have to apply for a Southwest business card first and your second card 30+ days after that. If you’re at 3/24 or below, it doesn’t matter what order you apply for cards in.

Existing Southwest personal card. If you already have a Southwest personal card, they won’t let you get a second one. So you can either close that card and then apply for one 30+ days later, or you can earn the Companion Pass by opening two Southwest business cards and keep your personal card open.

Southwest personal bonus within past 24 months. If you’ve earned a bonus on a personal Southwest card within the past 24 months, you can’t earn another bonus on a personal card until those 24 months are up. So you’ll have to open two business cards instead of one business and one personal.

The 10,000 qualifying points for cardholders. These points should post in your account by the end of January. If you’ve gotten enough bonus points, you may not even need these to get to 135,000.

Taxes/fees. If you’re wondering how much the taxes and fees amount to on your free flights, each segment within the US is usually $5.60. Other countries charge their own fees, so those will vary depending on where you’re flying.

Manage that spending! Make sure that the cards you apply for have spending requirements that you can meet within the right timeframe. If you’re in a two-parent household and are thinking about getting two cards each, plan out that spend carefully—you don’t want to bite off more than you can spend. A good strategy will ensure that you get your bonuses met in the right timeframe.

Separate reservation. When you add a companion to your flight, your companion will get their own separate confirmation number, so you’ll each need to check in for your flight—it’s not going to be on one reservation. And kids can be companions; Southwest knows they’re attached to you as your companion and won’t think they’re traveling unaccompanied.

Ready to apply?

Check my Best Offers page in October and November to get the highest available bonus offers for the Southwest cards!

If you have any questions about getting the Southwest Companion Pass, comment below.