The Southwest Companion Pass lets one designated person fly with you for taxes and fees, from $5.60 each way, on every Southwest flight you take. Through 2026, you earn it with 135,000 qualifying Rapid Rewards points in a calendar year, or 100 qualifying one-way flights.
If you are reading this in the second half of the year, you have a timing problem that most Companion Pass guides do not address, because they are written for someone starting in November. Earning the pass in September buys you sixteen months. Earning it in January buys you twenty-three. Same effort, seven months of difference.
This covers how to make that call, what the two-card math looks like either way, and when finishing now is genuinely the better move.
What Changes on January 1, 2027
Southwest's Rapid Rewards 2027 help page says the Companion Pass is earned a different way from January 1, 2027. The rest of this guide describes the 2026 rules, which apply through December 31, 2026.
- Platinum includes unlimited Companion Pass trips. Platinum takes 140,000 tier qualifying points or 100 qualifying one-way flights.
- Three trips at 95,000 tier qualifying points or 75 flights. This Milestone Reward sits below Platinum.
- Welcome bonuses stop counting. New cardmember welcome bonuses, referral bonuses and anniversary points earn Rapid Rewards points but no tier qualifying points. Southwest makes an exception for cardmembers approved on or before December 2, 2026, whose welcome bonus points can count toward the pass even if they meet the spend in early 2027.
- Cards earn 1 tier qualifying point per $1. Every Southwest card earns one tier qualifying point for each dollar of purchases.
- A 2026 pass keeps working. Southwest says current holders keep their pass until the end date shown in My Account.
Our Southwest Rapid Rewards 2027 overhaul article has the full list of changes.
How the Validity Window Works
This is the mechanic everything else hangs on.
Your pass is valid for the remainder of the calendar year in which you cross 135,000 qualifying points, plus all of the following calendar year. It is not twelve months from your earn date. It is a calendar boundary.
Cross the threshold on January 10 and you hold the pass for almost twenty-four months. Cross it on December 10 and you hold it for roughly thirteen. Cross it in late August and you get about sixteen.
The instinct with a rewards threshold is to hit it as fast as possible. Here, speed can cost you an entire year of the benefit. That is the whole timing argument.
The Two-Card Math
Five Chase-issued Southwest cards exist: three personal, two business. All five welcome bonuses count as qualifying points, which is what makes this reachable without flying.
Personal cards. The Southwest Plus at a $99 annual fee, the Southwest Premier at $149, and the Southwest Priority at $229. Chase shows welcome bonuses of 50,000, 55,000 and 60,000 points, after $1,000, $1,500 and $2,000 in purchases in the first 3 months. The Premier is the one most people keep long-term, with a 6,000-point anniversary bonus each year.
Business cards. The Premier Business at $149 with a limited-time 80,000-point bonus after $3,000, and the Performance Business at $299 with an 80,000-point bonus after $5,000. Business cards do not consume your personal 5/24 slots, though you still need to be under 5/24 to be approved.
Stacking one personal and one business card gets you there:
- Premier welcome bonus: 55,000
- Performance Business welcome bonus: 80,000
- Annual Companion Pass boost: 10,000
- Points earned hitting the two minimum spends: roughly 6,000 to 8,000
That totals somewhere around 151,000 to 153,000 qualifying points, clearing 135,000 with room to spare, without boarding a single flight.
Pairing a personal card with the Premier Business also clears 135,000 while its limited-time 80,000-point offer runs, on $3,000 of spend instead of $5,000. If that offer ends before you apply, the pairing can fall short, and a couple of round trips booked in a higher fare class closes the gap.
The 10,000-Point Boost and When It Lands
Through 2026, the annual Companion Pass boost is 10,000 qualifying points, once per Rapid Rewards member per calendar year. It is not once per card. Opening three Southwest cards does not get you 30,000.
Chase's terms say the boost is deposited by January 31 each calendar year, or up to 30 days after account opening. To get it, the card account has to be open and not in default when the boost is deposited.
Two things follow from that. First, if you already hold a Southwest card, this year's 10,000 should already be in your account. Second, the boost counts toward the calendar year it posts in, so a card opened late in the year may get its first boost in December, counting toward that year, or in January, counting toward the new one. Either way, the new year's 10,000 is due by January 31. That matters when you are working the timing question below.
What Does Not Count
The 135,000 threshold counts qualifying points, and the distinction catches people every January.
Points transferred in from Chase Ultimate Rewards, Bilt, or Marriott Bonvoy do not count. Neither do purchased points, gifted points, A-List tier bonus points, or most promotional bonuses.
You can hold 220,000 Rapid Rewards points and still be nowhere near the pass if most of them arrived by transfer. Southwest tracks the qualifying tally separately, and it is visible on the Companion Pass progress bar in your account.
This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in the whole strategy, because people top off with a Chase transfer expecting it to close the gap and it does nothing.
Making the Call: Now or January
Here is the decision framework for someone reading this mid-year.
Wait for January if you are starting from zero. If you have no Southwest cards and no meaningful qualifying balance, apply in late November and finish the minimum spends after your December statement closes, so those purchases post in January. Chase says to allow 6 to 8 weeks for a personal card bonus to post and up to 8 weeks for a business card bonus, so the bonuses should land early in the new year. The new year's 10,000-point boost arrives by January 31, you clear the threshold, and you hold the pass for close to twenty-three months.
Starting the same process in September gets you the pass late in the year, valid only through December of the following year. You do the identical work for seven fewer months of benefit.
Finish now if you are already close. If you are sitting above roughly 100,000 qualifying points from existing flying and an open card, close it out this year. You get the pass for the rest of this year plus all of next, and you can re-earn it next year for the year after. Two consecutive earns often beat one long window, especially if your travel is heavy now.
Finish now if you have a concrete trip. A pass that starts in October and covers a Thanksgiving and a Christmas trip with a companion has already returned real money. Optimizing for a longer window you may not fully use is a worse trade than banking savings you will definitely realize. If you are flying with the same person four times before New Year, take the shorter pass.
Finish now if your 5/24 clock is about to matter. If you are approaching five personal card openings in twenty-four months, waiting could mean not being approved at all. An approved pass with a shorter window beats a denied application with a perfect one.
The honest summary: from zero, waiting for January is almost always right. From a partial balance or a concrete near-term trip, finishing now usually is.
A Worked Timing Comparison
Numbers make the trade concrete. Take the same person running the same personal-plus-Performance-Business stack, and change only the start date.
Start in September. Cards arrive late September. Minimum spends of $1,500 and $5,000 run through October on ordinary expenses. With Chase's 6-to-8-week posting window, the bonuses land between late November and late December, the boost posts within 30 days of opening, and the threshold clears before the year ends. The pass runs from then through December 31 of next year: roughly thirteen months.
Start in late November. Cards arrive mid-December. The first 10,000-point boost posts within 30 days of opening; if it lands in December, it counts toward this calendar year and does nothing for you, since you will not clear the threshold until next year. The minimum spends finish after your December statement closes, so they post in January. With Chase's posting window, the bonuses land around February, after the new year's boost has arrived by January 31, and the threshold clears. The pass runs from February through December 31 of the following year: roughly twenty-three months.
Ten months of difference for a two-month delay in starting. If you fly with a companion once a month at an average $200 saved per round trip, those ten extra months are worth about $2,000.
The one wrinkle is the year boundary. Chase counts card points toward the pass in the calendar year they post to your Rapid Rewards account, and a purchase made after your December statement date posts in January. A bonus that posts on December 30 counts toward the year you meant to skip, so when you are deliberately pushing your earn into the new year, do not finish the minimum spend early.
The Fare Class Detail That Moves the Needle
If you are flying Southwest anyway while working toward the threshold, what you book matters enormously.
Through December 31, 2026, earning rates run 2 points per dollar on Basic, 6 on Choice, 10 on Choice Preferred, and 14 on Choice Extra, all on the base fare. From January 1, 2027, Choice Preferred earns 8 and Choice Extra earns 10.
Through 2026, a $400 ticket booked as Choice Extra earns 5,600 qualifying points. The same $400 on Basic earns 800. That is a 4,800-point swing on one ticket, which is more than three percent of your annual qualifying total.
When you are within about 10,000 points of the threshold and have a flight to book, paying up a fare class is frequently cheaper than chasing the same points any other way. When you are 60,000 points away, it is not worth the premium. The fare-class upgrade is a closing tool, not an earning strategy.
Costs and the Year-Two Question
Running the personal-plus-Performance-Business stack means two first-year annual fees: $149 for the Premier and $299 for the Performance Business. Against a pass that can save thousands, that is not a close call.
Year two is where people get caught. Both annual fees post again on the anniversary of opening, and by then the welcome bonuses are long banked. Decide before that date whether each card earns its keep. The Premier's 6,000-point anniversary bonus offsets part of its $149. The Performance Business at $299 needs you to be actually using its 4x on Southwest spend.
If a card no longer justifies its fee, product-change it rather than closing it. Closing accounts shortens your average credit age and gives back the score you paid for. Our breakdown of what happens to your credit score when you open cards covers that side.
When to Skip This Entirely
The pass rewards a specific pattern, and it is worth being honest about who it does not fit.
If you fly Southwest fewer than four times a year, the annual fees and the effort outweigh the savings. If you usually fly alone, the entire benefit is inert; you can change companions three times a calendar year, but you need someone to designate. If your travel is mostly international long-haul, Southwest does not compete there.
And if you cannot hit two minimum spends totaling $6,000 or more through expenses you already have, do not manufacture the spending to get there. Buying things you do not need to earn a companion benefit is a loss dressed up as a win. A flexible travel card you actually use is the better choice, and our 2026 travel card guide covers those.
After You Earn It
Two steps people miss.
You have to log in and designate your companion. Earning the pass does not assign one, and you cannot add them to a booking until you do. You get three companion changes per calendar year, so plan them around who you are actually traveling with in each season.
Then use it on the expensive flights. A companion on a $650 cross-country ticket costs the same taxes and fees, from $5.60 each way, as a companion on an $89 short hop. Save it for long-haul, peak-date, and last-minute bookings where the savings are largest. Stacking it with a cheap points redemption is the cheapest way two people get across the country.
For the full mechanics, including partner earning and worked examples across different traveler profiles, our complete Companion Pass strategy guide goes deeper, and there is a separate walkthrough on earning and using the pass.
Bottom Line
Through 2026, the pass is 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year, and a personal-plus-business card stack plus the 10,000-point boost gets you there without flying.
The part worth thinking about is when. From a standing start, apply in late November, finish the spend after your December statement closes so the bonuses post in the new year, and let the new year's boost arrive by January 31, which buys you close to two years. If you are already past 100,000 qualifying points, or you have companion trips booked before New Year, take the shorter window and earn it again next year.
And check your qualifying balance rather than your points balance before you plan anything. Transferred points do not count, and that is the mistake that costs people a year.
Updated October 17, 2026: the Companion Pass rules from January 1, 2027.
