Southwest Speedy Rewards: Information to incomes, redeeming and maximizing factors

Southwest Airways prides itself on its “transfarency” philosophy — low fares and no change charges, hidden charges or sudden bag charges. No matter your fare sort, every passenger can verify two baggage without spending a dime, and Speedy Rewards factors are a number of the most simply redeemable in comparison with different loyalty packages. Subsequently, it is no shock that some TPG staffers regard Southwest as one of the top airlines.

Maintain studying to be taught a number of the finest methods you’ll be able to earn and redeem Southwest Speedy Rewards factors.

Southwest Speedy Rewards program overview

Like Southwest Airways itself, the Speedy Rewards frequent flyer program has amassed a loyal following. Regardless of not having a typical award chart or being a part of an airline alliance, its promise of no blackout dates and the power to earn Southwest’s well-known Companion Pass makes Speedy Rewards a superb alternative for {couples}, households and people with not-so-flexible schedules.

Like JetBlue’s TrueBlue program, all Southwest award tickets are priced primarily based on the ticket’s money worth. This implies the costlier the ticket you wish to guide, the extra factors you may want. TPG currently values Speedy Rewards factors at 1.4 cents per level, that means 10,000 factors ought to offer you round $140 in worth.

Nevertheless, relying in your ticket’s worth, chances are you’ll get roughly.

Associated: Southwest provides points; extends elite status and Companion Pass for select travelers

Southwest elite standing

Along with the Companion Cross, Southwest presents two elite standing tiers: A-Record and A-Record Most well-liked.

Southwest A-Record elite standing

To qualify for A-Record standing, you will need to fly 20 one-way Southwest flights or earn 35,000 tier-qualifying factors in a calendar 12 months.

Tier-qualifying factors embody these earned from paid flights booked via Southwest or by assembly spending thresholds on the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card, the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card, the Southwest Speedy Rewards Premier Enterprise Credit score Card or the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Credit Card. Bought factors and factors earned from Speedy Rewards program enrollment, bank card bonuses, tier bonus factors, flight bonus factors and accomplice factors don’t rely towards A-Record or A-Record Most well-liked standing.

Day by day E-newsletter

Reward your inbox with the TPG Day by day publication

Be a part of over 700,000 readers for breaking information, in-depth guides and unique offers from TPG’s specialists

With Southwest A-Record standing, you may get the next:

• Precedence boarding
• 25% bonus on factors earned from paid flights
• Free same-day standby/modifications (taxes and costs might apply)
• Precedence check-in and safety lane entry
• Devoted A-Record member cellphone line

Southwest A-Record Most well-liked elite standing

A-Record Most well-liked standing requires you to fly 40 qualifying one-way Southwest flights or earn 70,000 tier-qualifying factors in a calendar 12 months. You may obtain all the advantages of A-Record standing, however this tier comes with further perks:

• 100% bonus on factors earned from paid flights
• Free inflight Wi-Fi
• Two free premium drinks on flights of 176 miles or extra

Associated: What is Southwest elite status worth?

earn Southwest Speedy Rewards factors

There are a couple of methods to earn Southwest Speedy Rewards factors — a lot of which do not require flying.

Earn Speedy Rewards factors by flying

As you would possibly anticipate, you’ll be able to earn Speedy Rewards factors each time you fly on a paid Southwest Airways flight. The variety of factors you may earn on each journey relies on the price of your flight, your A-Record elite standing, the kind of ticket you bought and your cost methodology.

Southwest has 4 ticket courses. Every contains completely different advantages, with the very best fare — Enterprise Choose — together with precedence boarding and a free alcoholic drink on board. This is what number of factors every fare class earns:

• Wanna Get Away: 6 factors per greenback
• Wanna Get Away Plus: 8 factors per greenback
• Anytime: 10 factors per greenback
• Enterprise Choose: 12 factors per greenback

You may earn factors in your ticket’s base fare. The bottom fare is the ticket’s price, excluding any related taxes and costs. If you buy a Southwest ticket, you’ll be able to view your flight’s base fare on the airline’s web site.

So, if you happen to bought a Wanna Get Away fare with a $100 base worth, you’d earn 600 Southwest Speedy Rewards factors after you’re taking your flight. However, a Wanna Get Away Plus ticket would earn 800 factors, an Anytime ticket would earn 1,000 factors and a Enterprise Choose ticket would earn 1,200 factors.

As talked about, Southwest A-Record and A-Record Most well-liked elite standing earn much more miles on paid flights. Every standing tier earns the next bonus on paid flights:

• A-Record: 25% bonus
• A-Record Most well-liked: 100% bonus

Utilizing the above $100 base fare instance, an A-Record member would earn 750 Speedy Rewards factors on a Wanna Get Away fare, whereas an A-Record Most well-liked member would earn 1,200 Speedy Rewards factors. The mileage bonus is arguably probably the most helpful perk of Southwest elite standing and may also help you rack up tons of additional miles all through your travels.

Earn with Southwest bank cards

Southwest Airlines has several cobranded credit cards issued by Chase. Presently, the airline presents three private and two business credit cards, every with various advantages, welcome bonuses and annual charges.

At the moment, you’ll be able to earn Southwest’s profitable Companion Cross, legitimate via Feb. 28, 2025, plus 30,000 bonus factors after you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening on the next private playing cards:

Southwest additionally presents the next enterprise playing cards:

Along with a beautiful welcome bonus, every card has distinctive advantages. For instance, the Southwest Precedence card contains an annual $75 journey credit score and seven,500 bonus factors (price $105 per TPG’s valuations). This utterly offsets the cardboard’s $149 annual charge and can enable you to earn extra factors all year long.

Moreover, you’ll be able to switch factors from Chase Final Rewards to Southwest Speedy Rewards at a 1:1 switch ratio. In case you do not thoughts lacking out on the Southwest-specific perks, chances are you’ll take into account making use of for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card because it earns 2 factors per greenback spent on journey and three factors per greenback spent on eating purchases.

Earn factors whilst you eat with Speedy Rewards Eating

Like many airways, Southwest presents a dining rewards program the place you’ll be able to earn factors. Create a Rapid Rewards Dining account, and hyperlink your bank cards to earn Speedy Rewards factors each time you dine at a collaborating restaurant. That is along with the rewards you’d earn with a bank card, so hyperlink a card that earns bonus points on dining to maximise your points-earning.

Be certain that to join e-mail notifications whenever you enroll in Speedy Rewards Eating. By doing so, you may earn 3 factors per greenback spent at collaborating eating places. Sadly, opting out of e-mail notifications will drastically lower your earnings to 1 level per $2 spent.

The Speedy Rewards Eating program presents a beautiful set of welcome bonuses. You may earn 500 bonus factors after you spend $25 and evaluation a collaborating restaurant within the first 30 days, and you may earn further factors by leaving evaluations and performing other tasks. You may search via all collaborating eating places on the Rapid Rewards Dining website.

Make purchases via Speedy Rewards Buying

You may earn bonus factors whenever you store on-line with Rapid Rewards Shopping. Like Speedy Rewards Eating, the miles you may earn with this shopping portal are along with the factors you earn with a bank card.

Utilizing Speedy Rewards Buying is easy: Join an account, discover your service provider on Speedy Rewards and click on via its hyperlink earlier than making a purchase order. Factors are normally credited to your Speedy Rewards account inside per week of constructing a purchase order, however some retailers might take longer to course of.

The variety of factors you may earn per greenback spent varies by service provider and modifications ceaselessly. The portal usually has promotions that supply bonus factors whenever you spend a set amount of cash. Regulate the Speedy Rewards Buying web site to see when these promos are occurring.

One final thing: All the time verify a buying portal aggregator like Cashback Monitor earlier than you store via Speedy Rewards Buying. The service provider you are ordering from might supply extra factors elsewhere.

Ebook inns

Southwest has partnerships with a number of the main resort corporations. That permits you to earn Southwest Speedy Rewards factors as an alternative of resort factors, however we do not usually advocate this feature.

You may earn as much as 10,000 factors per evening by reserving resort rooms with Southwest Accommodations or Rocketmiles. Examine charges with each, and guide with whichever platform, if both, most accurately fits your wants.

The variety of factors you may earn usually correlates to the worth of your resort room, and you will earn extra factors whenever you guide Factors Plus properties. Do not forget that you can not earn resort factors or use hotel elite status benefits on these bookings, and you will usually must guide immediately with the resort to make use of these advantages.

You may guide many boutique inns via Southwest Accommodations, so it might be price reserving these via Southwest Accommodations in the event that they in any other case would not earn factors. Examine pricing with the resort’s web site to make sure you get a comparable fee via Southwest Accommodations or Rocketmiles.

Associated: 10 easy ways to earn more Southwest Rapid Rewards points

The method for redeeming Rapid Rewards points for flights is essentially the identical as reserving a paid flight. Head to the Southwest homepage, enter your search standards and choose the “Factors” possibility. Click on the yellow search button to see your flight choices.

You may see award pricing to the best of every out there flight. You may filter flights by the variety of layovers and departure occasions utilizing the buttons on the high of the web page. Then, click on on the ticket worth whenever you discover a flight you’d wish to guide and comply with the on-screen prompts.

What fare sort ought to I select?

You may redeem factors for flights in any of the 4 Southwest fare sorts. Wanna Get Away — the least costly fare sort — is finest for many vacationers.

Wanna Get Away Plus is barely extra versatile, with free confirmed and stand-by same-day flight modifications. Moreover, these fares allow you to switch flight credit score to a different particular person if you happen to cancel your flight.

Anytime fares have the identical advantages as Wanna Get Away Plus, in addition to precedence safety and EarlyBird check-in. Anytime money fares are refundable, however do not forget that Wanna Get Away fares are additionally refundable when reserving with factors.

Lastly, the advantages of Enterprise Choose fares are hardly well worth the further price. These tickets embody group A1 to A15 boarding, expedited safety at choose airports and a free alcoholic drink on board. Often, they price greater than triple the factors price of a Wanna Get Away fare, so we advocate staying away from them generally.

Can I modify Southwest award tickets without spending a dime?

Like all Southwest fares, you’ll be able to change or cancel Southwest award tickets without spending a dime. In case you choose to vary a ticket, you are solely answerable for paying the brand new ticket’s fare distinction if it is costlier. However, if you happen to swap to a less expensive flight, Southwest will refund the distinction in factors. With this in thoughts, we extremely advocate maintaining a tally of award pricing after you guide a flight — if the fare goes down, you’ll be able to request a refund for the additional miles.

Canceling a Southwest award ticket is simply as easy. If you cancel your ticket, the miles you used to guide will probably be refunded to your Speedy Rewards account. There aren’t any further cancellation charges.

Do I’ve to pay taxes and costs on award tickets?

You might be answerable for paying sure kinds of taxes and costs whenever you guide Southwest award tickets.

Can I redeem for accomplice award tickets?

As talked about above, Southwest is among the few airways with out worldwide airline companions.

Associated: 10 countries you didn’t know you could fly to on Southwest

Maximize your miles with the Southwest Companion Cross

The Southwest Companion Cross is undoubtedly one of the crucial helpful perks. After incomes the go, you’ll be able to select a companion to journey with you for simply the price of taxes and costs on Southwest flights booked with money or miles. You should utilize the Companion Cross on as many flights as you need, successfully doubling the worth of your Speedy Rewards factors.

You may earn a Companion Cross by flying 100 Southwest one-way flight segments or — extra virtually for many — incomes 135,000 qualifying factors. Qualifying factors embody Speedy Rewards factors earned by flying, spending on bank cards and making purchases by way of Speedy Rewards Eating and/or Speedy Rewards Buying.

Welcome bonuses on Southwest cobranded bank cards rely towards the Companion Cross, so you may make some critical progress by opening one of many Southwest bank cards featured earlier. Moreover, all Southwest bank card holders get 10,000 Companion Cross qualifying factors deposited into their account yearly.

Keep in mind, you’ll be able to earn a Companion Cross legitimate via Feb. 28, 2025, plus an additional 30,000 bonus factors after you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening on the next playing cards:

Sadly, transfers from Chase Final Rewards don’t rely towards the Companion Cross.

Your Companion Cross will probably be legitimate for the rest of the 12 months it is earned and everything of the next 12 months. In case you plan on incomes your Companion Cross via credit card welcome bonuses, attempt to time your spending to earn the required mileage originally of the 12 months. This provides you with probably the most time to get pleasure from your hard-earned Companion Cross since it is going to be legitimate for nearly two years.

You may solely set one companion at a time, however you’ll be able to change your companion 3 times per 12 months. You may change your companion by calling Southwest at 800-435-9792. Do not forget that your companion is not going to earn Speedy Rewards factors on their flight, however you may nonetheless earn factors if you happen to fly on a paid ticket.

Associated: 15 lessons from 15 years of having the Southwest Companion Pass

However, Southwest has had its fair share of operational issues. To not point out, its top-tier elite members and full-fare Enterprise Choose clients aren’t assured a bulkhead or exit row seat, which might make Southwest’s transcontinental and Hawaii flights uncomfortable for taller vacationers.

Nonetheless, this system stays well-liked with every kind of vacationers, particularly households.

Now you know the way to make an knowledgeable resolution about Southwest’s Speedy Rewards program so you’ll be able to determine if it is best for you to have interaction with.