Southwest introduced some main adjustments to its Speedy Rewards loyalty program, most notably making it harder to earn a Southwest Companion Move.
Starting Jan. 1, 2023, you’ll must earn 135,000 qualifying factors in a calendar yr in an effort to get your arms on a Companion Move. Beforehand, you’ll’ve wanted 125,000 factors to qualify.
The Southwest Companion Move is a much-coveted perk amongst journey aficionados, because it’s mainly a buy-one-get-one deal in your Southwest flight. If you purchase a flight (or redeem factors for a free flight), you possibly can designate a companion to fly with you for under the price of taxes and charges, which begin at $5.60 one-way.
How you can earn 135,000 factors for the Southwest Companion Move
Earn factors by flying
Southwest’s lowest fare class, Wanna Get Away, offers you 6 Speedy Rewards factors for each $1 spent in base airfare, which means you’d must spend $22,500 yearly to earn the Companion Move if acquired solely by means of flying through a budget fares. For those who fly Enterprise Choose, which earns 12 factors per greenback spent, you’d must spend $11,250 yearly.
Earn factors by spending on a Southwest bank card
Paying for Southwest flights isn’t the one option to earn Southwest factors. Factors can be earned by spending on Southwest bank cards.
Making use of for a brand new Southwest bank card also can provide you with an enormous swath of factors in a single go, which may additionally rely towards the requirement to earn a Companion Move. Listed below are a number of the present Southwest bank card sign-up bonus provides for shoppers:
And whereas this information means it’s more durable to get a Companion Move, there’s some silver lining for individuals who maintain a Southwest bank card. The corporate right now additionally introduced a brand new profit: Speedy Rewards bank card members will obtain a lift of 10,000 Companion Move-qualifying factors yearly, which can get deposited into your account on the primary enterprise day of every calendar yr or inside 30 days of opening the cardboard.
The factors from the Companion Move increase cannot be redeemed for flights, however will provide you with a ten,000 level head begin in the direction of incomes the perk.
And holding a number of bank cards gained’t provide you with an even bigger head begin. Just one increase of 10,000 Companion Move qualifying factors may be earned every calendar yr by every Speedy Rewards account, regardless of what number of Speedy Rewards bank cards are tied to that Speedy Rewards account.
Different adjustments coming to the Speedy Rewards loyalty program
Together with the elevated Companion Move necessities, Southwest introduced just a few different adjustments.
Most often, Companion Move holders will now be capable of board along with their Companions. There are just a few exceptions, corresponding to when the Companion Move holder bought a Enterprise Choose fare, bought Upgraded Boarding or added the Companion after they’d been assigned a boarding place. However this information makes it extra probably that you simply and your buddy will be capable of sit collectively, regardless of Southwest’s unconventional boarding system.
Southwest additionally applied a brand new no-show coverage for Speedy Rewards bookings. For those who’ve booked a Wanna Get Away or Wanna Get Away Plus fare with Speedy Rewards factors, it’s essential to cancel the reservation at the least 10 minutes earlier than the flight’s authentic scheduled departure time in case your plans change and also you need your factors again — in any other case you’ll forfeit them. That coverage kicks in subsequent summer season.
Southwest is subsequent in line for airline development
The information of Southwest making it tougher to earn a Companion Move follows a development of different journey loyalty applications rising necessities for particular advantages. Earlier this month, Delta upped how a lot spending it’s essential to do to qualify for Medallion elite standing — the primary improve the corporate had made since 2015.
And whereas this won’t precisely provide help to really feel any higher, you won’t really fly any greater than regular simply to hit the brand new factors requirement given the rising price of flights. The common U.S. airfares in September 2022 had been 43% larger than they had been in September 2021.
How you can maximize your rewards
You need a journey bank card that prioritizes what’s essential to you. Listed below are our picks for the finest journey bank cards of 2022, together with these finest for:
