Methods to earn and use the Southwest Companion Go

One of the advantageous choices within the journey trade is the Southwest Companion Pass. This go grants you the privilege of bringing a companion alongside at no cost (excluding relevant taxes and charges) on an infinite variety of Southwest Airlines flights till the go expires. For frequent Southwest flyers, this profit alone can simply quantity to 1000’s of {dollars} saved yearly.

Nonetheless, the query arises: How does one earn this extremely coveted golden ticket? To acquire the go, it’s essential to earn 135,000 qualifying factors (or full 100 one-way qualifying flights) inside a calendar yr. This achievement will grant you the go for the rest of the calendar yr wherein you earned it and the whole lot of the next yr. Whereas incomes such a considerable variety of factors could appear daunting, you’ll be able to expedite the method by profiting from the welcome bonus provided by a Southwest cobranded credit card.

Let’s delve into the steps to acquire the go and discover maximize this unimaginable privilege as soon as it’s in your possession.

Methods to earn the Southwest Companion Go

To earn the Southwest Companion Go, you have got two choices: Earn 135,000 qualifying factors or full 100 qualifying one-way flights inside a calendar yr.

You’ll be able to earn qualifying factors by varied means, similar to by flying with Southwest or participating with its companions. The latter consists of 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 solution to earn the Companion Go because it means that you can 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 full requirement to 125,000 qualifying factors per yr.

Southwest presents varied bank card promotions that facilitate incomes the Companion Go.

You’ll be able to earn a Companion Go good by 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 Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card, Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card and Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card.

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

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When you intention to earn the Companion Go, we advocate incomes your qualifying miles early within the yr. It’s because the go stays legitimate for the remainder of the present yr and the whole lot of the next yr. For instance, should you earn a Companion Go in March 2024, will probably be legitimate for the remaining 9 months of 2024 and all the yr of 2025.

Associated: I flew to Atlanta for the day to earn a 2-month Southwest Companion Pass — here’s why (and how it went)

Methods to use the Southwest Companion Go

As soon as you have earned a Companion Go, Southwest makes it extremely simple to make use of.

Step 1: Arrange your Companion Go

After incomes the Companion Go, Southwest will ship you a congratulatory electronic mail inside just a few days to acknowledge your important achievement. To trace your progress in actual time, log in to your Southwest Rapid 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 deal with and Speedy Rewards account quantity.

Alternatively, you have got the choice to designate your companion by calling Southwest. Nonetheless, because the on-line choice course of is simple, there isn’t any have to contact the service by cellphone for this specific step.

Step 2: Verify flight availability in your whole journey occasion

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 at no cost (excluding taxes and charges). However earlier than you make a reservation, it’s essential to guarantee there are sufficient accessible seats on the specified flight in your whole journey group. Including a Companion Go fare is just attainable if a seat is offered for buy.

As an illustration, in case you are a household of 4 planning to journey with one particular person utilizing the Companion Go, seek for 4 seats on the Southwest web site. It is necessary to notice that each 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 accessible (along with the cheaper fares), you’ll be able to proceed together with your reserving.

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

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

Most vacationers will discover it handy to ebook flights on-line at Southwest.com. Nonetheless, if desired, flights may also be booked over the cellphone with Southwest cellphone brokers. You’ll be able to pay for these flights with money or Rapid Rewards points, as each strategies are suitable with the Companion Go.

When you 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 have to miss out on incomes factors, as even children can earn frequent flyer points 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 ebook your companion as quickly as attainable. That is notably important for flights that are inclined to replenish shortly, similar to throughout peak Christmas dates to and from peak journey locations.

To proceed, the Companion Go 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 facet of the display screen, you will see a piece known as “My upcoming journeys.” There, you must see the flight reservation you simply made, together with another upcoming journeys with Southwest. When you’ve got many flights reserved, you will have to click on the “See all journeys” hyperlink for all of your reservations to seem.

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 Information.” There, one can find your companion’s identify and figuring out data crammed in. With every thing pre-filled, there may be 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. When you’ve got 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 Go takes only a minute or two after you see the way it works the primary time. It is that easy.

Extra Southwest Companion Go ideas and methods

Though utilizing the Southwest Companion Go is sort of at all times simple, there are just a few quirks.

You may obtain separate affirmation numbers

Whenever you ebook flights for a gaggle or household collectively, everybody can have the identical affirmation quantity. Nonetheless, with the Companion Go, your companion will at all times be assigned a special Southwest affirmation quantity than the remainder of the occasion. 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 examine in, having two reservation numbers can gradual you down within the Southwest fastest-finger recreation to get a prime boarding position precisely 24 hours earlier than your flight. I like to recommend having two units able to examine you and your companion in concurrently. When you examine in a single particular person first after which the opposite particular person subsequent, chances are you’ll lose out on a few of the greatest boarding positions.

Associated: Is Southwest EarlyBird Check-In worth it?

You should name to vary companions

Whilst you can change your companion thrice in a calendar yr, Southwest Companion Go holders ought to know that this requires a cellphone name. According to the airline’s website, it’s also possible to “tweet us at @southwestair, or ship us a message on Facebook.”

The effective 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 almost immediately. It can take some time for a brand new Companion Go card to reach within the mail in your new companion. Nonetheless, the change is often carried out for on-line reserving functions inside seconds.

Be careful for reservations shut along with totally different companions

Whilst you can change companions as much as thrice a yr, you will not be capable to change your companion till you have accomplished all journey together with your present companion. When you’ve got two journeys shut along with totally different companions, issues can get a bit difficult.

For instance, you probably have a visit together with your youngster on June 1 and one other together 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 case would not come up usually, it is an necessary consideration in case you are planning to journey throughout peak occasions and/or on in style routes. If a flight does promote out, chances are you’ll end up within the place of getting to ebook a brand new flight for your self at a better worth to seek out an itinerary with house in your companion.

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