If you have earned a significant amount of Southwest points in 2013 you may want to bump it up to 110K.
When you earn 110K points in a year from Southwest flights, from Southwest credit cards, or from hotel transfers you earn an unlimited use companion pass that allows you to bring a companion with you on all of your paid and award flights for the following calendar year.
So if you have earned 80K Southwest points in 2013, consider transferring 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt. That transfer is instant.Ā You or your spouse would need to have a Chase Sapphire PreferredĀ® Card, Ink Plus , or Ink Bold to make that transfer.
You can then transfer those 50,000 Hyatt points into 30,000 Southwest points. That transfer takes time, but it’s backdated to the day of the transfer so a few days after it is completed you will retroactively have earned a companion pass.Ā You may lose 20,000 points in the process, but you should get more value than that if you travel in 2014 with your pass.
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18 Comments On "Last Chance For A 2013 Southwest Companion Pass"
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Hey thanks for the article, love your website, been a great help to me.
Quick question on this post, Why cant I just transfer directly from Chase Ultimate rewards points to southwest points? Wouldn’t that be a better option then going through Hyatt points?
Im sure im missing something.
Thanks in advance.
Can’t you transfer UR points to SW directly? 1:1 ratio.
That would make life too easy š
Transfers from Ultimate Rewards directly to Southwest do not count towards earning a companion pass. Thus the loss of 20K by going via Hyatt.
Dan,
Can I transfer 50K points from my Wife’s Southwest account to my own and have that count as earning over 110K myself?
Dan u need to make some sort of infograph similar to what the airlines have showing where that airline flies to – from what city to what city and do that for airline/hotel rewards transfers.
How long after closing a southwest card vcan i open pne and get the signup bonus?
Good idea! Although I had 110K+ in SWA account only 105K was from CY2013 so it was a good play to UR->Hyatt->SWA. Now I’ll await SWA. Great plan, Thank YOU!
I have 53k SW + 57 SW coming in tomorrow will that be good for the companion pass
love the companion pass thankx dan
Thanks Just got mine through opening two cards and 10K spending on gift cards
if i can wait and get all 110 points in jan, then ill have companion for 2014 AND 2015 though, right?
You can also transfer Marriott points to Southwest that count toward the companion pass status but it’s a pretty horrible transfer rate (20,000 Marriott to 5,000 SW).
@Fan:
No.
@SoCal Dude:
Awesome!
@Dude:
@t:
The full 110K needs to all be earned in the same calendar year.
Where from NY do SW fly? and where internatioanly?
How long after open CC would see miles posted?
TIA
Like “t”‘ I also thought that I could accrue that 110000 points this January, until reading closer into your post at 11:35pm last night. As i was almost 60,000 pts short (since I’m only set to get my bonus later in January),I ended up transferring two sets of 30,000 UR pts to hyatt and then to SW. Cost me lots of UR pts, but G-d willing will be worth it. You agree?
Dan
I applied for both cc as you posted a month ago, but go declined for one card. My credit score is 760 and i called them to reconsider but they said i dont have long enough history. (Oldest card is 6 years)
Any advive?
if my bonus for 50k x2 comes in next month, i have companion pass only for 2014 or 2015 as well…..?
@”Last second realization”
I’m not sure how much your January bonus is going to be but it may have been a better play to wait until Jan. ’14 to do your transferring of points. If you had 50K pts now (you said you were 60K short of 110K) and you are getting one of the SW credit card 50K bonuses in Jan. that means you would have been in the same spot you are in now in Jan. ’14. If you earned all 110K in Jan or even Feb ’14 your companion pass would be good through the end of 2015. As it is now, earning it in Dec ’13, your pass is only good until the end of 2014. You may have missed out on an extra year of having the companion pass.