Post by fuzzylogic on Jan 28, 2023 6:08:37 GMT -5
Morning,
What else do you do while waiting for your family to get up to get on a plane when you're awake before them and not going back to sleep? Come out and post about your experience!
The Southwest Companion Pass lets your companion (person you designate) fly free (except $5 fee each way) everywhere you fly. For the rest of the calendar year in which you qualify, plus the entire next year. For me this will be 2023-2024. Getting Companion is typically hard to do, since you have to amass 135,000 points, which if you do by flying, would require spending $22,500 on tickets since SW cheap flights give you 6 points per dollar spent. The key is to do this by other means, namely the Credit Card bonuses. Many sites out there detail how to do this but we pulled it off in a magical 2 weeks.
A neat trick that I'm not sure most people know is that you can apply Companion Pass to your EXISTING flights. You have to call in, but Southwest can take your "other" off your existing flights, credit you those points (or dollars) back, and rebook them as a Companion. Well... we have 4 flights already booked for 2023!
Jan to Disney, about 9,000 /person
Spring break to Disney, about $550 /person
July 4 to Disney, about 25,000/person
Aug to Hawaii, about 40,000/person
Because we had a trip in Jan, we were under the gun to get this done fast. Here's how it went down for us:
Dec 31. We were lying in bed on NYE thinking about the upcoming year of trips, and it dawned on me that we didn't do Companion in 2022. Just 2020-2021. And, we were in good shape for having not gotten Chase bonuses within 2 years, or having applied for 5 Chase cards, so we went for it. Applied for both cards, approved in minutes.
A few days later they were on my Chase Portal - but I couldn't use them because they weren't active, and they couldn't help me activate them till I actually received them.
Around Jan 9, got them in the mail. It took longer than hoped... 3-5 business days we kept saying... but we got them a few days later.
Now you don't know your first statement date... but you can call and ask (I got the wrong answer several times) or you can look at your "$0 payment due" and back out 25 days. Doing this, I knew my statement date was around Jan 12-14. Ack! We now had to charge $6,000 in a day or two -- AND do it in time for the charges to post. Posting takes 1-3 days! Some vendors post fast, others post slow.
So we pulled in every charge we had coming. Insurance, bills, and DVC dues (which we delayed paying to get them in this charge). We hit the almost exactly $1000 and $5000, and the 50,000 and 80,000 bonus showed on our account... Jan 14 our statement closed and we barely hit the thresholds, but got the full bonuses paid out and Companion enabled the next day.
Look at the costs:
$200 fee
$70 fee
And what we got:
136,000 points
9,000 credited back
$550 credited back
25,000 credited back
40,000 credited back
In total, it took us from a handful of points in our account to over 250,000 points in our account.
And - we got money back. We spent about $270, but got $550 back from Southwest (flight credit, which my wife can use for a flight later).
Today we're off to Disney on the first of what will be many fun trips. I'm going to do a 2nd post with referral links. If you use them, I'd get 20,000 points (each) and suggest putting your link out after you complete this since really only 2 people can use them for much benefit. (you're capped at 100,000 referral points per year so I'd rather someone else get 40,000 points than I get 20,000). This makes your potential even higher, from the 135,000 to up to 235,000 points. Enjoy!!
What else do you do while waiting for your family to get up to get on a plane when you're awake before them and not going back to sleep? Come out and post about your experience!
The Southwest Companion Pass lets your companion (person you designate) fly free (except $5 fee each way) everywhere you fly. For the rest of the calendar year in which you qualify, plus the entire next year. For me this will be 2023-2024. Getting Companion is typically hard to do, since you have to amass 135,000 points, which if you do by flying, would require spending $22,500 on tickets since SW cheap flights give you 6 points per dollar spent. The key is to do this by other means, namely the Credit Card bonuses. Many sites out there detail how to do this but we pulled it off in a magical 2 weeks.
A neat trick that I'm not sure most people know is that you can apply Companion Pass to your EXISTING flights. You have to call in, but Southwest can take your "other" off your existing flights, credit you those points (or dollars) back, and rebook them as a Companion. Well... we have 4 flights already booked for 2023!
Jan to Disney, about 9,000 /person
Spring break to Disney, about $550 /person
July 4 to Disney, about 25,000/person
Aug to Hawaii, about 40,000/person
Because we had a trip in Jan, we were under the gun to get this done fast. Here's how it went down for us:
Dec 31. We were lying in bed on NYE thinking about the upcoming year of trips, and it dawned on me that we didn't do Companion in 2022. Just 2020-2021. And, we were in good shape for having not gotten Chase bonuses within 2 years, or having applied for 5 Chase cards, so we went for it. Applied for both cards, approved in minutes.
A few days later they were on my Chase Portal - but I couldn't use them because they weren't active, and they couldn't help me activate them till I actually received them.
Around Jan 9, got them in the mail. It took longer than hoped... 3-5 business days we kept saying... but we got them a few days later.
Now you don't know your first statement date... but you can call and ask (I got the wrong answer several times) or you can look at your "$0 payment due" and back out 25 days. Doing this, I knew my statement date was around Jan 12-14. Ack! We now had to charge $6,000 in a day or two -- AND do it in time for the charges to post. Posting takes 1-3 days! Some vendors post fast, others post slow.
So we pulled in every charge we had coming. Insurance, bills, and DVC dues (which we delayed paying to get them in this charge). We hit the almost exactly $1000 and $5000, and the 50,000 and 80,000 bonus showed on our account... Jan 14 our statement closed and we barely hit the thresholds, but got the full bonuses paid out and Companion enabled the next day.
Look at the costs:
$200 fee
$70 fee
And what we got:
136,000 points
9,000 credited back
$550 credited back
25,000 credited back
40,000 credited back
In total, it took us from a handful of points in our account to over 250,000 points in our account.
And - we got money back. We spent about $270, but got $550 back from Southwest (flight credit, which my wife can use for a flight later).
Today we're off to Disney on the first of what will be many fun trips. I'm going to do a 2nd post with referral links. If you use them, I'd get 20,000 points (each) and suggest putting your link out after you complete this since really only 2 people can use them for much benefit. (you're capped at 100,000 referral points per year so I'd rather someone else get 40,000 points than I get 20,000). This makes your potential even higher, from the 135,000 to up to 235,000 points. Enjoy!!
