Introduction
Here's the thing about Southwest Rapid Rewards that trips up newer points players: it isn't part of any airline alliance, it doesn't take transfers from Amex, Citi or Capital One, and most of the "transfer partners" the older blog posts list either never really worked at scale or have been quietly killed off.
What's left is two transfer pipelines: Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards. They pay for Southwest flights, and Southwest's co-branded credit cards earn the qualifying points for one of the most valuable perks in domestic travel: the Companion Pass.
Let me walk you through what actually works in 2026, where the math gets interesting, and where I'd put my own credit card spend if I were starting from zero today.
Quick Answer: How Southwest Transfer Partners Work in 2026
Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards both transfer points to Southwest Rapid Rewards (Bilt lists its transfers at 1:1). Chase also issues three Southwest co-branded consumer cards (Plus, Premier, Priority) that earn Rapid Rewards points directly. Hotel-program transfers to Southwest are either gone or so unfavorable that they're not worth your time. Build through Chase and the co-brands.
Why Southwest Plays Different
Southwest has always been the odd one out among U.S. airlines. No alliance. No premium cabin. No real award chart in the traditional sense. Rapid Rewards prices flights based on the cash fare, so you always know what your points are buying.
That cash-tied pricing is the feature, not the bug. Southwest points are reliably worth roughly 1.3 to 1.5 cents each on most domestic routes. There's no "sweet spot" arbitrage like 60K Aeroplan to Tokyo or 75K Virgin Atlantic to ANA business class. But Southwest's terms let it change the program and its rules at any time without notice.
The flip side is that Southwest doesn't court the points-and-miles enthusiast crowd the way other programs do. It doesn't need a buffet of transfer partners to drive engagement. It has Chase, it has its own co-brands, and it has a passenger base that mostly pays cash.
For us, that means the plan is simple: use Chase UR points to book Southwest flights, and use the co-brands to earn the points that count toward the Companion Pass.
Chase Ultimate Rewards: The Main Transfer Partner
Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers to Southwest Rapid Rewards at 1:1, instantly. That's the headline. Every UR point you transfer becomes one Rapid Rewards point, usually within a few minutes, occasionally up to a couple of hours.
The cards that earn transferable Chase UR points are the Sapphire Preferred, the Sapphire Reserve, and the Ink Business Preferred (plus the older Ink Plus and Ink Bold for legacy holders). The Chase Freedom Unlimited and Freedom Flex earn UR too, but those points only become transferable when you also hold a premium card and pool them.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
The Sapphire Preferred carries a $95 annual fee and 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, and 2x on all other travel. It's the cleanest entry point for someone building toward Southwest. On October 1, 2026, Chase lists a welcome offer of 75,000 points after $5,000 in purchases in the first 3 months, and Chase lists Southwest Rapid Rewards among the card's transfer partners.
One catch if you're targeting the Companion Pass: Southwest's Rapid Rewards terms list "points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards" among the points that don't count as Companion Pass qualifying points. Transferred Sapphire points book Southwest flights; they don't move you toward the pass.
Chase Sapphire Reserve
The Reserve refreshed in 2025 with a $795 annual fee and a heavier benefits package: $300 annual travel credit, expanded Pay Yourself Back categories, Priority Pass, and 8x on Chase Travel purchases. The annual fee is real, and this card isn't for everyone. But for travelers who'd use the credit anyway and value the lounge access, the effective cost drops meaningfully and the earning rate on travel is hard to beat.
For the Southwest play specifically, the Reserve is overkill if Southwest is your primary use case. The Sapphire Preferred does the same 1:1 transfer at a tenth of the annual fee. The Reserve only makes sense if you're already getting full value from its travel credits and lounge perks.
Ink Business Preferred
If you have any side hustle or small business (and "small" can be very small), the Ink Business Preferred is the workhorse. $95 annual fee, 3x on the first $150K spent annually across travel, shipping, internet, cable, phone, and advertising. The welcome bonus on this card has historically been one of the most generous in the entire Chase lineup, and currently sits at 100K points after $8,000 in spend in three months.
Stack an Ink with a Sapphire Preferred and you've got two welcome bonuses' worth of transferable points for Southwest bookings. Once transferred, they don't count toward the Companion Pass.
How the Transfer Actually Works
Log into Chase Ultimate Rewards. Click "Transfer Points." Select Southwest Rapid Rewards as the partner. Enter the amount in 1,000-point increments. Confirm. The points typically show up in your Southwest account within minutes.
Two practical notes. First, you can only transfer to a Rapid Rewards account in the same name as the Chase cardholder. No transferring to your spouse's account. Second, transfers are one-way. Once UR points are in Southwest, they're committed. So don't transfer until you're ready to book. Transferring early won't help with Companion Pass qualification either, because Southwest doesn't count points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards.
The Southwest Co-Branded Cards
Chase issues three Southwest consumer cards and two business cards (the Premier Business and the Performance Business). All five earn Rapid Rewards points directly, and importantly, all of them issue welcome bonuses that count as qualifying points toward the Companion Pass.
The current consumer lineup, from Chase's card pages:
The Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus carries a $99 annual fee and earns 2x on Southwest purchases and on the first $5,000 in combined gas station and grocery store purchases each anniversary year. It includes 3,000 anniversary points, and Chase lists no foreign transaction fees. The Plus is the entry-level card and the right pick if you want minimal annual fee exposure while still grabbing a welcome bonus that counts toward Companion Pass.
The Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier costs $149 annually and earns 3x on Southwest purchases and 2x on the first $8,000 in combined grocery store and restaurant purchases each anniversary year. It bumps the anniversary bonus to 6,000 points and the anniversary flight discount promo code from the Plus card's 10% to 15%, and adds a complimentary Preferred seat within 48 hours of departure when available and 1,500 tier qualifying points toward A-List for every $5,000 in purchases. The Premier is the middle option and tends to make sense for travelers who fly Southwest a few times a year.
The Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority sits at the top with a $229 annual fee. It earns 4x on Southwest purchases and 2x at gas stations and restaurants, plus 7,500 anniversary points, a complimentary Preferred seat at booking and unlimited Extra Legroom seat upgrades within 48 hours of departure when available.
For the Companion Pass play, what matters most isn't which card you pick. It's the welcome bonus count toward the 135K qualifying threshold. Apply timing matters too. The Companion Pass calendar resets January 1, so the cleanest play is to earn most of your qualifying points early in a calendar year, locking in the pass for the rest of that year plus the entire next year. Almost two years of free companion travel from a single qualifying push.
The Companion Pass: The Real Prize
You earn the Companion Pass by hitting either 135,000 qualifying Rapid Rewards points or 100 qualifying one-way flights in a single calendar year. Once you hit one, you get to designate a companion who flies free (just taxes and fees) on every flight you book with cash or points for the rest of that calendar year and all of the next.
What counts as qualifying:
Points earned from Southwest flights count. Points earned on Southwest co-branded credit cards count, including welcome bonuses. Base points from Rapid Rewards partners (hotel stays, rental cars, dining program) count.
What doesn't count:
Points purchased with cash do not count, and neither do points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards or other partner programs, points transferred between members, reward flights or partner bonus points (other than the Chase Southwest cards' bonuses). Tier-qualifying points (TQPs) for A-List status are a separate currency entirely.
Here's the play I'd actually run if I were starting from zero in January and wanted the Companion Pass for nearly two years:
Open a Southwest Premier or Priority co-brand. Hit the spending requirement. Earn the welcome bonus directly into Southwest, where it counts as qualifying points. Chase also deposits a 10,000-point Companion Pass qualifying boost each calendar year, one per Rapid Rewards member.
Add organic spending on the Southwest card, any Southwest flights you pay for, and base points from Rapid Rewards partners. Once those reach 135,000 qualifying points in the calendar year, the Companion Pass is yours for the rest of that year and all of the next.
Keep a Sapphire Preferred for the other half of the job: its points transfer 1:1 to Southwest and pay for the flights you and your companion take. They just don't count toward earning the pass. Our Companion Pass guide covers the full card-stacking plan.
What About Marriott, Hyatt, and IHG?
Older Southwest transfer guides list hotel-program transfers as if they're useful options. They're mostly not, and in some cases they no longer exist in the form those guides describe. Treat anything you read on this in 2026 with skepticism and confirm directly on the program's transfer page before you move points.
The general principle holds regardless: hotel points are worth more as hotel stays than as airline transfers. Hyatt points in particular are arguably the most valuable hotel currency on the market right now, often valued at 1.7 cents-plus when redeemed for hotel nights. Burning them on a 2-or-3-to-1 transfer to any airline is almost always the wrong move. If your hotel points balance is sitting idle, the answer is to plan a hotel stay, not a transfer.
The exception, if it still exists when you check, is filling a tiny gap to reach a specific Southwest booking. If you're 3,000 points short of a flight that's about to sell out and you've got a stash of hotel points you'd never otherwise use, sure. But that's a niche edge case, not a strategy.
What You Cannot Transfer to Southwest
This list is short and important. Southwest isn't on these programs' transfer partner lists (checked September 30 and October 1, 2026):
American Express Membership Rewards. Not on Amex's transfer partner list.
Citi ThankYou Points. Not a Southwest partner.
Capital One Miles. Capital One transfers to a long list of airlines, but Southwest is not on it.
If your points are sitting in any of these currencies and you want Southwest flights, the workaround is to redeem those points for cash equivalent or for a different airline that fits your route, then book Southwest with cash or with Chase UR points routed through a Sapphire card.
Common Mistakes I See
Transferring before you're ready to book. Chase UR points are flexible. Southwest points are committed. Don't move them until you've found the flight.
Counting Chase UR transfers toward the Companion Pass. Southwest's terms list points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards among the points that don't qualify. Earn the pass with Southwest card points, paid flights and partner base points, and use your Chase points to book the trips.
Chasing a Companion Pass too late in the calendar year. If you qualify in November, you get the pass for two months plus the following full year. If you qualify in February, you get it for nearly two full years. Same earning effort, very different return.
Ignoring the co-branded cards because the annual fees feel small. The $99 Plus and the $149 Premier carry welcome bonuses that count toward the 135K. Skipping these to "save" $99 a year leaves real points on the table.
Buying Southwest points outright. The price is brutal, usually around 2.7 to 2.9 cents per point, and they don't count toward Companion Pass. There's almost no scenario where buying points beats a Chase transfer.
Where I'd Actually Start
If I were a reader sitting on zero Southwest points today and wanted a Companion Pass that runs nearly two years, here's exactly what I'd do, in order.
January or February, open a Chase Sapphire Preferred. Run my normal spending through it for three months to hit the welcome bonus, and keep those points in Chase until I'm ready to book Southwest flights, since transferred points don't count toward the Companion Pass.
Same window, open one Southwest co-brand. The Premier at $149 is the sweet spot for most people. Hit its welcome bonus. Those points land directly in Southwest and count toward the pass.
The co-brand's welcome bonus, the 10,000-point boost, the co-brand's spending and my paid Southwest flights build the qualifying total. The Sapphire points pay for the trips.
Then I add an Ink Business Preferred if I can justify it on real business spending, for more transferable points to book with.
That's it. That's the whole strategy. There's no exotic transfer partner sweet spot for Southwest. There's no "if you know, you know" angle. The play is a Southwest co-brand for qualifying points and Chase UR for booking, timed correctly, and the payoff is nearly two years of companion travel on every flight you book.
Conclusion
Southwest Rapid Rewards isn't a transfer-partner buffet. It's a focused program with two flexible-currency partners (Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards) plus its own co-branded credit cards. Stop looking for the hidden Hyatt or IHG transfer angle. Use Chase UR for transfers that pay for flights, use a Southwest co-brand for the direct earning that counts toward the Companion Pass, and time that earning around the calendar year so the pass works out to nearly two full years of value from a single qualifying push.
If you fly Southwest at all, this is the best-value play in domestic travel. Run it once, run it well, and you've got nearly two years of companion flights for the person sitting next to you.
Updated October 9, 2026: the Ink Business Preferred welcome bonus.
