One of the vital advantageous choices within the journey trade is the Southwest Companion Move. This cross grants you the privilege of bringing a companion alongside without spending a dime (excluding relevant taxes and charges) on a vast variety of Southwest Airways flights till the cross expires. For frequent Southwest flyers, this profit alone can simply quantity to 1000’s of {dollars} saved yearly.

Nevertheless, the query arises: How does one earn this extremely coveted golden ticket? To acquire the cross, you should earn 135,000 qualifying factors (or full 100 one-way qualifying flights) inside a calendar 12 months. This achievement will grant you the cross for the rest of the calendar 12 months wherein you earned it and the whole lot of the next 12 months. Whereas incomes such a considerable variety of factors could appear daunting, you may expedite the method by profiting from the welcome bonus supplied by a Southwest cobranded bank card.

Let’s delve into the steps to acquire the cross and discover find out how to maximize this unbelievable privilege as soon as it’s in your possession.

How one can earn the Southwest Companion Move

To earn the Southwest Companion Move, you may have two choices: Earn 135,000 qualifying factors or full 100 qualifying one-way flights inside a calendar 12 months.

You’ll be able to earn qualifying factors via numerous means, equivalent to by flying with Southwest or participating with its companions. The latter contains making purchases through the Southwest buying portal, reserving inns with Southwest companions and utilizing a Southwest bank card in your on a regular basis bills.

Choosing a Southwest cobranded bank card is usually the only option to earn the Companion Move because it lets you earn factors effortlessly, and the welcome bonuses rely towards the requirement as nicely. Moreover, holders of a Southwest cobranded bank card obtain 10,000 qualifying factors yearly, successfully lowering the overall requirement to 125,000 qualifying factors per 12 months.

Southwest affords numerous bank card promotions that facilitate incomes the Companion Move.

You’ll be able to earn a Companion Move good via Feb. 28, 2025, plus 30,000 factors after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening on the next cobranded bank cards: Southwest Speedy Rewards Plus Credit score Card, Southwest Speedy Rewards Premier Credit score Card and Southwest Speedy Rewards Precedence Credit score Card.

Moreover, Southwest affords the next enterprise card sign-up bonuses:

Every day Publication

Reward your inbox with the TPG Every day e-newsletter

Be a part of over 700,000 readers for breaking information, in-depth guides and unique offers from TPG’s specialists

For those who intention to earn the Companion Move, we suggest incomes your qualifying miles early within the 12 months. It is because the cross stays legitimate for the remainder of the present 12 months and the whole lot of the next 12 months. For instance, for those who earn a Companion Move in March 2024, will probably be legitimate for the remaining 9 months of 2024 and the complete 12 months of 2025.

Associated: I flew to Atlanta for the day to earn a 2-month Southwest Companion Move — this is why (and the way it went)

How one can use the Southwest Companion Move

As soon as you’ve got earned a Companion Move, Southwest makes it extremely straightforward to make use of.

Step 1: Arrange your Companion Move

After incomes the Companion Move, Southwest will ship you a congratulatory electronic mail inside a number of days to acknowledge your important achievement. To trace your progress in actual time, log in to your Southwest Speedy Rewards account on Southwest.com.

Upon receiving the e-mail, click on the supplied hyperlinks to arrange your preliminary companion selection. You should present your companion’s full identify (matching their ID), beginning date, electronic mail tackle and Speedy Rewards account quantity.

Alternatively, you may have the choice to designate your companion by calling Southwest. Nevertheless, for the reason that on-line choice course of is simple, there isn’t any must contact the service by telephone for this specific step.

Step 2: Verify flight availability in your total journey get together

Now that you’ve got chosen a companion, it is time to benefit from the thrilling half: reserving a flight the place your companion can fly without spending a dime (excluding taxes and charges). However earlier than you make a reservation, you should guarantee there are sufficient obtainable seats on the specified flight in your total journey group. Including a Companion Move fare is simply attainable if a seat is accessible for buy.

As an example, in case you are a household of 4 planning to journey with one individual utilizing the Companion Move, seek for 4 seats on the Southwest web site. It is essential to notice that every one 4 seats needn’t be in the identical fare class. If solely three seats stay with Wanna Get Away fares however there are additionally Anytime and Enterprise Choose fares obtainable (along with the cheaper fares), you may proceed along with your reserving.

Step 3: E book flights for everybody apart from your companion

To make use of your Companion Move, the subsequent step is to make flight reservations for everybody in your journey group, excluding the companion. As an example, in case you are a household of 4 with one grownup holding the Companion Move and the opposite grownup being the companion, it’s best to initially e book tickets for the Companion Move holder and the 2 children. The companion’s tickets shouldn’t be booked at this stage.

Most vacationers will discover it handy to e book flights on-line at Southwest.com. Nevertheless, if desired, flights can be booked over the telephone with Southwest telephone brokers. You’ll be able to pay for these flights with money or Speedy Rewards factors, as each strategies are appropriate with the Companion Move.

For those who select to buy these tickets with money, keep in mind to incorporate the Speedy Rewards numbers of all vacationers in your reserving. There is no such thing as a must miss out on incomes factors, as even youngsters can earn frequent flyer factors on Southwest.

Step 4: Make your companion’s flight reserving

After you have made flight reservations for all members of your journey group besides your companion, it is time to safe a flight reservation for that particular person. To make sure that you do not miss out on the ticket availability you confirmed in Step 1, it’s essential to e book your companion as quickly as attainable. That is significantly important for flights that are inclined to refill shortly, equivalent to throughout peak Christmas dates to and from peak journey locations.

To proceed, the Companion Move holder (the primary grownup in our instance) ought to revisit the Southwest web site and log in to their Speedy Rewards account. Entry the “My Account” part positioned on the high of the homepage.

On the left-hand aspect of the display, you will see a piece known as “My upcoming journeys.” There, it’s best to see the flight reservation you simply made, together with another upcoming journeys with Southwest. If in case you have many flights reserved, you will must click on the “See all journeys” hyperlink for all of your reservations to look.

Beneath your flight particulars, you will see a button that claims “Add Companion.” Click on on it.

You may discover that the “Journey & Worth Particulars” are already pre-filled with the flight data and the price of the taxes and charges. On this case, for a home one-way journey, that worth is simply $5.60 in your companion to fly.

Click on “Proceed” to go to the subsequent web page that features “Passenger & Cost Data.” There, you can see your companion’s identify and figuring out data stuffed in. With all the pieces pre-filled, there’s little or no probability of a reserving mistake.

Lastly, you will be prompted to pay the relevant taxes and charges to safe the flight reservation for the companion. If in case you have a bank card already saved to your account profile, you need to use that to expedite the method.

I’ve discovered that reserving subsequent flights with a Companion Move takes only a minute or two after you see the way it works the primary time. It is that straightforward.

Further Southwest Companion Move ideas and methods

Though utilizing the Southwest Companion Move is sort of at all times straightforward, there are a number of quirks.

You may obtain separate affirmation numbers

While you e book flights for a gaggle or household collectively, everybody could have the identical affirmation quantity. Nevertheless, with the Companion Move, your companion will at all times be assigned a distinct Southwest affirmation quantity than the remainder of the get together. Whereas this is not an enormous deal, it might matter for the technique surrounding Southwest’s distinctive check-in coverage.

When it is time to test in, having two reservation numbers can gradual you down within the Southwest fastest-finger sport to get a prime boarding place precisely 24 hours earlier than your flight. I like to recommend having two units able to test you and your companion in concurrently. For those who test in a single individual first after which the opposite individual subsequent, chances are you’ll lose out on a number of the greatest boarding positions.

Associated: Is Southwest EarlyBird Verify-In price it?

You should name to vary companions

When you can change your companion thrice in a calendar 12 months, Southwest Companion Move holders ought to know that this requires a telephone name. In response to the airline’s web site, you can too “tweet us at @southwestair, or ship us a message on Fb.”

The nice print on Southwest’s website says that it could take as much as 21 enterprise days for processing. In our expertise, the companion is at all times modified practically immediately. It’s going to take some time for a brand new Companion Move card to reach within the mail in your new companion. Nonetheless, the change is often applied for on-line reserving functions inside seconds.

Be careful for reservations shut along with completely different companions

When you can change companions as much as thrice a 12 months, you will not be capable to change your companion till you’ve got accomplished all journey along with your present companion. If in case you have two journeys shut along with completely different companions, issues can get a bit tough.

For instance, when you’ve got a visit along with your little one on June 1 and one other along with your partner on June 15, you will not be capable to add your partner as a companion to that second journey till after June 1. It’s theoretically attainable that the June 15 flight may promote out earlier than June 1, leaving your partner excessive and dry for the June 15 journey.

Though this example would not come up typically, it is an essential consideration in case you are planning to journey throughout peak instances and/or on fashionable routes. If a flight does promote out, chances are you’ll end up within the place of getting to e book a brand new flight for your self at the next worth to search out an itinerary with area in your companion.

Associated: 15 classes from 15 years of getting the Southwest Companion Move