Introduction

The Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card is the top-tier personal card in Southwest's lineup, and its $229 annual fee is the highest of the three personal options, above the Premier ($149) and the Plus ($99). For the right flyer it earns its keep. The benefits are built around seats: a complimentary Preferred seat at booking and unlimited Extra Legroom seat upgrades within 48 hours prior to departure, when available, plus 7,500 anniversary points and 2,500 tier qualifying points toward A-List for every $5,000 you spend. This review walks through whether those benefits add up for you, who the card is actually built for, and where it gets outclassed.

Quick Summary

Best For: Frequent Southwest flyers, especially anyone chasing A-List status or the Companion Pass. Standout Benefit: A complimentary Preferred seat at booking and unlimited Extra Legroom seat upgrades within 48 hours prior to departure, when available. Biggest Drawback: Outside Southwest purchases, gas stations and restaurants, the card earns 1x. This is not a daily driver. Current Offer: 60,000 bonus points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Annual Fee: $229.

The Priority Card at a Glance

Southwest sells three personal cards through Chase: the Plus ($99), the Premier ($149), and the Priority ($229). All three earn Rapid Rewards points and list a free first checked bag, Group 5 boarding, 25% back on inflight purchases, a 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost each year and no foreign transaction fees. What changes between them is the welcome offer, the earning rates, the seat benefits, the anniversary points and a few extras.

What the Priority lists versus the Premier:

  • 4x on Southwest Airlines purchases (Premier: 3x)
  • 2x at gas stations and restaurants (Premier: 2x at grocery stores and restaurants on the first $8,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year)
  • A complimentary Preferred seat at booking (Premier: a Preferred seat within 48 hours prior to departure, when available)
  • Unlimited Extra Legroom seat upgrades within 48 hours prior to departure, when available
  • 7,500 anniversary points instead of 6,000
  • 2,500 tier qualifying points per $5,000 spent toward A-List (Premier: 1,500)

Everything else earns 1x. The free first checked bag covers you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation, and Chase puts the saving at up to $90 round trip ($45 per bag per trip).

Seats Do the Heavy Lifting

The Priority's seat benefits are its headline. Chase lists two:

  • Complimentary Preferred seat at booking. Select a Preferred seat when you book, at no additional charge, when available.
  • Extra Legroom seat upgrade. Unlimited upgrades to an Extra Legroom seat within 48 hours prior to departure, at no additional charge, when available.

"When available" is the catch. Both depend on open seats, so on a full Friday flight to Las Vegas or Denver you may not get the upgrade.

The Premier's seat benefit is a Preferred seat selected within 48 hours prior to departure, and the Plus gets a Standard seat in the same window. If where you sit matters to you, the Priority is the personal card that lets you pick a Preferred seat at booking.

Boarding and Bags

Boarding is by numbered group. The Priority puts you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation in Group 5, giving you earlier access to overhead bins, the same boarding benefit the Plus and Premier list. The free first checked bag covers the same group.

Say you and a partner each check one bag on two round trips a year: at $45 per bag per trip, that's $360 in bag fees you don't pay. That covers the $229 fee on its own, but the Plus and Premier give you the same bag benefit for less, so it isn't a reason to pick the Priority over them.

The Status Accelerator

Chase lists 2,500 tier qualifying points (TQPs) toward A-List status for every $5,000 spent in purchases annually on the Priority. The Premier lists 1,500 TQPs per $5,000. Normally TQPs come from flying, so this lets card spending do part of the work.

Say you put $50,000 of purchases through the Priority in a year: that's 25,000 TQPs from spend alone, plus whatever you earn from actual flights. If A-List status is on your radar, the higher TQP rate is one of the clearest reasons to pick the Priority over the Premier.

Earning Structure: Don't Use This As a Daily Driver

The Priority earns 4x on Southwest Airlines purchases, 2x at gas stations and restaurants, and 1x on everything else. 4x on Southwest is the best Southwest rate of the three personal cards.

Real spending math: say you spend $10,000 a year at restaurants. The Priority earns 2x there, 20,000 points. The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 3x on dining, 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points, and Chase lists Southwest Rapid Rewards among its transfer partners. Use the Priority for Southwest purchases. Use a flexible-points card for most of the rest.

If you don't already carry a flexible-points card and want one that pairs naturally with Southwest, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the obvious starting point.

Companion Pass: Same Math As Premier

The Companion Pass is Southwest's strongest loyalty perk: a designated companion flies free (taxes and fees from $5.60 per one-way trip) for the rest of the calendar year you earn it plus the entire next year. To earn it, you need 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year or 100 qualifying one-way flights.

Southwest's Rapid Rewards terms count points earned on its Chase credit cards, including the welcome bonus and spending, along with paid Southwest flights and base points from Rapid Rewards partners. Points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards or other partner programs don't count, and neither do purchased points or reward flights.

The Priority's Companion Pass benefit is the same as the Premier's and the Plus's: a 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost each year. The differences are the welcome bonus (60,000 points on the Priority, 55,000 on the Premier) and the 4x rate on Southwest purchases. If the Companion Pass is your only goal and status and seats don't matter, the Plus ($99) or Premier ($149) is the cheaper route. The Priority makes more sense if you want the pass plus the faster path toward A-List and the seat benefits.

Pros

  • 4x on Southwest Airlines purchases, the highest Southwest rate of the three personal cards.
  • A complimentary Preferred seat at booking and unlimited Extra Legroom seat upgrades within 48 hours prior to departure, when available.
  • 2,500 TQPs per $5,000 spent toward A-List, versus 1,500 on the Premier.
  • 7,500 points every year on your cardmember anniversary.
  • Free first checked bag for you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation.
  • No foreign transaction fees, plus a 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost each year.

Cons

  • The $229 annual fee is the highest of the three personal Southwest cards.
  • Earning outside Southwest purchases, gas stations and restaurants is 1x. Daily-driver use leaks value to better cards.
  • Rapid Rewards points and the card's benefits tie you to Southwest. If you fly several airlines, a flexible-points card keeps more options open.
  • The seat benefits apply only when seats are available, so they're least reliable on the full flights where you'd want them most.
  • Chase offers the card only if you don't have a current Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit Card and haven't received a new Cardmember bonus within the last 24 months.

How It Compares to the Premier

This is the comparison most readers actually need. The Premier and Priority share the free first checked bag, Group 5 boarding, 25% back on inflight purchases, the 10,000-point Companion Pass boost and no foreign transaction fees. The difference is in the extras.

The Priority costs $229 against the Premier's $149. For the higher fee you get 4x instead of 3x on Southwest purchases, a Preferred seat at booking instead of within 48 hours prior to departure, unlimited Extra Legroom upgrades when available, 7,500 anniversary points instead of 6,000, and 2,500 TQPs per $5,000 spent instead of 1,500. The Premier's own extras are 2x at grocery stores and restaurants on the first $8,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year and a 15% flight discount promo code each cardmember anniversary.

The case for staying on the Premier is real if you fly Southwest a few times a year and never chase status. If you'll use the seat upgrades and the TQPs, the Priority is the better card. If you want to dig deeper on the Premier specifically, our Southwest Premier card review covers it in detail.

How It Compares to Flexible-Points Cards

This is where the Priority's limitations show. The Chase Sapphire Preferred at $95 earns 5x on Chase Travel, 3x on dining, 3x on gas stations, EV charging and vacation homes at top brands, 3x on top streaming services and online grocery (exclusions apply), and 2x on all other travel, and Chase lists Southwest Rapid Rewards among its transfer partners. So you can effectively earn Southwest points faster on a Sapphire Preferred than on the Priority for any non-Southwest spending, and you keep the option to transfer to United, British Airways, Hyatt, or Marriott if your travel plans change.

The Capital One Venture is another comparison worth running. 2x miles on every purchase (5x on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel), transferable to airline partners such as Air Canada Aeroplan, British Airways Club and Flying Blue, $95 annual fee. Better daily earning than the Priority, less Southwest-specific value.

The honest framing: if you're locked into Southwest because of geography or family travel patterns, the Priority earns its place. If you have airport flexibility, a flexible-points card almost always wins on total value.

For a broader take on whether co-branded airline cards are worth carrying at all, our piece on are airline credit cards worth it walks through the full tradeoff.

Who Should Get This Card

Great fit for:

  • Heavy Southwest flyers (10+ Southwest flights per year)
  • Anyone within range of A-List status who wants the spending accelerator
  • Companion Pass earners who also want the seat benefits and the faster A-List path
  • Families who fly Southwest and want to board together, now that seats are assigned and boarding is by group
  • Anyone who checks bags: the first checked bag is free for you and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation

Not ideal for:

  • Occasional Southwest flyers (1-3 trips a year). Premier wins on cost
  • Travelers who fly multiple airlines. Flexible-points cards win
  • Anyone close to Chase's 5/24 limit. Your application slot is better spent on a more flexible card
  • Travelers prioritizing free checked bags across airlines. See our guide to credit cards with free checked bags for cross-airline options

Final Verdict

The Southwest Priority is built for one specific reader: the heavy Southwest flyer who wants a Preferred seat at booking, Extra Legroom upgrades and a faster path toward A-List status. For that person, it's the strongest Southwest personal card, and 4x on Southwest purchases plus the extra TQPs are what the higher fee over the Premier buys. For occasional Southwest flyers, the Premier or Plus covers the bag and boarding benefits for less. For multi-airline travelers, a flexible-points card almost always earns more on non-Southwest spending. Match the card to how you actually travel, not the one with the longest benefits list.

Updated October 1, 2026: Checked against Chase's current Southwest card pages. Corrected the annual fees ($229 Priority, $149 Premier, $99 Plus), the welcome offer, the earning rates, the seat, boarding and bag benefits and the A-List TQP rate. Also corrected which points count toward the Companion Pass, from Southwest's Rapid Rewards terms. Fixed a key point's wording and corrected the Capital One Venture's earning rates and transfer partners.

Sources

  1. Chase: Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority card page (read 2026-10-01)
  2. Chase: Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier card page (read 2026-10-01)
  3. Chase: Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus card page (read 2026-10-01)
  4. Chase: Sapphire Preferred card page (read 2026-10-01)
  5. Southwest Airlines: Rapid Rewards terms and conditions, Companion Pass section (read 2026-10-01)
  6. Capital One: miles transfer partners (read 2026-10-01)
  7. Capital One: Venture Rewards card page (read 2026-10-01)

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