How To Get Buy One Get One Free On Southwest Flights! | Travel Hacking

If you read my initial post about travel hacking you know that I had the Southwest card at some point but wasn't in an area where they flew so it was inconvenient. Well, I've moved to Phoenix and it is a hub for Southwest so I'm about to be back!

​In 2019 I'm going through Chase cards building up their Ultimate Rewards points which aren't a bad option but that was to kill time as I built to what I really wanted. Beginning of 2020 I'm going for the  the holy grail of travel rewards. THE SOUTHWEST COMPANION PASS!

In 2019 Southwest would give you a companion pass (buy one get one free) when you reach 110,000 points in a calendar year. Wait, it gets better. The companion pass lasts for the remainder of the year you got it and the one after as well. My hope is to get it early in 2020 so I can essentially have it for two years, 2020 and 2021.

The trick is to get the personal Southwest card and get the sign on bonus for 40,000 by doing you minimum spend. Next, you'll get the business card and the 80,000 sign up bonus by doing your minimum spend. There is also a business card with 60,000 sign up that is less expensive but you'll need to earn the rest of the point. At that point you have all the points you need and boom, you and your travel buddy are flying for the price of one!

​In 2020, they caught on and are now requiring you to get 125,000 points. They also reduced the sign up bonuses to 70,000 if you spend $5,000 in 3 months for both business cards and 40,000 points for spending $1,000 in 3 months for a personal card. This makes it more complicated because even if you reach your minimum spends you'll have $116,000 points (bonuses plus money spent) and need to spend another $9,000. You can use tricks like buying gift cards and all that be just be more careful when pursuing this now!
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This is a great time to get the pass as Southwest just started flying to Hawaii, Costa Rica, Belize, and plan to expand even more.

Just to clarify, you can get buy one get one free Southwest tickets to places like Hawaii and start with 130,000 points. It really doesn't get better than that!

Let’s answer some concerns you may have?

1. The first thing I will say on this is if you are NOT able to pay your card off at the end of the month, DO NOT GET A CREDIT CARD! The rewards aren’t worth it. You need to be getting out of credit card debt and avoiding it at all costs, not getting deeper into it!
2. Won’t churning cards affect my credit score? It may ding you a couple points but your credit score fluctuates anyways in the course of the month and it won’t hurt you. 
3. I don’t have a business so how can I get a business credit card. You’re card could be for anything you have, real estate, selling on Etsy, dog walking, art selling, song singing, really whatever. You should also be able to get an EIN number off the tax website If needed. 
4. With the Southwest companion pass the points have to be earned in the year you get them. So, you can't get jump ahead and get the card in December and do all you Christmas shopping.
5. You are not able to get the sign up bonus if you have received one in the last 2 years.
6. These cards fall under the chase 5/24 rule. Meaning you can't get this card, because it is with Chase, if you have opened more than 5 cards in the past 24 months.  

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out! Happy Free Traveling! ​