Southwest Airlines Companion Pass Offer

Just Love Disney

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 30, 2013
I was approved for the SW Credit Card Companion Card Offer.

Does anyone know how soon after approval I can begin to book the Free Companion Flights?

There was some weird verbiage on the offer page that said as soon as you hear back from Southwest, you can begin booking your flights. By hearing back from SW, does that mean as soon as I receive my card in the mail?

Thanks for your help :)
 
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You have to meet the minimum spend on the card first. Then wait for the points to post and wait for your companion pass to post also. So, it all depends on how quick you do that.
 
Thanks for your response :) So after I meet the minimum spend, approximately how long does it take for the points and companion pass to post so that I can begin making travel arrangements?
 
It usually goes by your statement closing date. You will want to meet the minimum spend a bit before the closing date in hopes that the points will post soon after. Once the points post you should be able to see the Companion Pass online and set up your companion. If you haven't already - set up an account on the SW site. Once everything posts you will see it under your account. (make sure you have your RR # before doing this).
 


As stated above, before you get the companion pass, you need to meet the $4,000 minimum purchase requirement. In our case, we planned out the things we wanted to buy while we were waiting for the card in the mail, so we were able to meet the spending requirement within a week after getting the card and luckily our statement closed a day or two after that. We got our card 1/20, statement closed 1/28, the 30,000 points populated within the next day, but the Companion Pass didn't show up until 2/5, so about a week after the statement closed.
 
It usually goes by your statement closing date. You will want to meet the minimum spend a bit before the closing date in hopes that the points will post soon after. Once the points post you should be able to see the Companion Pass online and set up your companion. If you haven't already - set up an account on the SW site. Once everything posts you will see it under your account. (make sure you have your RR # before doing this).

I do have a SW account and RR# so I'll keep an eye out for more info there. Thanks again! :)
 
As stated above, before you get the companion pass, you need to meet the $4,000 minimum purchase requirement. In our case, we planned out the things we wanted to buy while we were waiting for the card in the mail, so we were able to meet the spending requirement within a week after getting the card and luckily our statement closed a day or two after that. We got our card 1/20, statement closed 1/28, the 30,000 points populated within the next day, but the Companion Pass didn't show up until 2/5, so about a week after the statement closed.

That's great to hear how fast your Companion Pass showed up. We're doing the same thing - making a note of anything we can use the card on to meet the minimum in a hurry. Thanks for your help as well :)
 


Yes, you must meet the spend.
And, the spend has to hit credit card - BEFORE the statement closes for that month.
A few days later it hits Southwest and then with a day or so, the CP is available.

You can, and should book the flight for the paying person earlier, then add companion later.

Best place for airline related stuff is at flyertalk dot com
 
I am anxiously awaiting my CP as well! I should have it in hand around March 14, which is when SW opens the schedule through October, which is when we need to fly. I also just got a killer rate at the St. Francis in San Francisco for Memorial Day weekend, because, ya know, gotta put that CP to good use this year! Thanks for the good info above.
 
What date is the "official" starting date? We opened this card for this promotion and it arrived in the mail Thursday. I hope to meet the requirement without having to sweat the deadline but just wondering what date they go by. So far we have charged about 1/4 of the requirement.

Side note, sort of funny and sort of not - one of my planned expenses to charge on this card was new tires for my car, which was about $700. DH went to do that Saturday and comes home all proud of himself because if you opened the tire place card, you got a $100 rebate. And he did. Sigh! Not a bad thing but I was banking on that as part of my $4k SW charging!
 
What date is the "official" starting date? We opened this card for this promotion and it arrived in the mail Thursday. I hope to meet the requirement without having to sweat the deadline but just wondering what date they go by. So far we have charged about 1/4 of the requirement.

Side note, sort of funny and sort of not - one of my planned expenses to charge on this card was new tires for my car, which was about $700. DH went to do that Saturday and comes home all proud of himself because if you opened the tire place card, you got a $100 rebate. And he did. Sigh! Not a bad thing but I was banking on that as part of my $4k SW charging!

It goes by approval date but Chase adds in some extra time to cover the shipping of the card. You typically have about 115 days to meet the required spend but you can SM them from your account to confirm the exact date you need to hit.

So hard to pass up the quick score with that rebate! If only he weighed it against all the money saved by using the CP. But if you can make the spend without buying stuff you wouldn't have normally bought anyway still, then the combination is a better deal and it all works out in the end with just a little more leg work :)
 
We got the same promo and got our pass today.

The card came about 4 weeks ago, charged immediately to hit the limit. I even called the Chase after the charges were not pending anymore. She said to contact the rewards company if we didn't get them in about 6 weeks. Done and happily using it later this week.
 
What date is the "official" starting date? We opened this card for this promotion and it arrived in the mail Thursday. I hope to meet the requirement without having to sweat the deadline but just wondering what date they go by. So far we have charged about 1/4 of the requirement.

Side note, sort of funny and sort of not - one of my planned expenses to charge on this card was new tires for my car, which was about $700. DH went to do that Saturday and comes home all proud of himself because if you opened the tire place card, you got a $100 rebate. And he did. Sigh! Not a bad thing but I was banking on that as part of my $4k SW charging!
You can send Chase a secure message and they will tell you exactly what your deadline date is.
 
That's great to hear how fast your Companion Pass showed up. We're doing the same thing - making a note of anything we can use the card on to meet the minimum in a hurry. Thanks for your help as well :)

We prepaid all utilities - cable, gas, electric and water. I won't have a utility bill to pay for months. I wanted to use the money on something that we would actually help our budget instead of a fun item. If we didn't have a Disney Visa, I would pay for our trip with this card. Another idea was to purchase gas and grocery gift cards to use in the future.
 
My card arrived today, yay! At the time of application I wasn't sure if I should add my DH as an authorized user or not so we only have 1 card at this time. What are the pros/cons of adding him to my account? Would he still be able to apply for a different offer should some other great deal come out if he is already authorized on mine? That's the reason I didn't add him initially.

On a side note, unfortunately our card cycles on 2/27 so we only have about a week to hit the $4,000...

Thanks again for your input :)

ETA: I logged into my RR acct and saw where it says to designate a companion but then it just said to read more and linked me to the CP regular requirements (110,000+ pts or something to that nature). Is that normal at this point?

Also, I created my user name, etc. on the Chase site when I received my card today but I don't see anything within that links it to my SW RR #. Is that something I need to do manually or will it (my Chase purchase info) auto upload to my SW RR account?
 
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My card arrived today, yay! At the time of application I wasn't sure if I should add my DH as an authorized user or not so we only have 1 card at this time. What are the pros/cons of adding him to my account? Would he still be able to apply for a different offer should some other great deal come out if he is already authorized on mine? That's the reason I didn't add him initially.

Other CC Guru's will know more than me about the accounts. Last year I opened a SW Visa in my name to get the rewards, but I didn't add DH because I figured we would want to do it under his name sometime. I don't know if they are added to an account if they are eligible or not. As for only having one card, once we got our initial one I went online and requested a second card. Don't indicate your card as lost or stolen, but if you say it's damaged they will send another with the same account number. That way you both have access to the card.
 
As long as you did not establish the initial card jointly, only in one person's name rather, then adding a family member does not preclude them from receiving a bonus on the same card at a future time. For example, our main everyday SW card was originally opened in DH's name and I received a card as an Authorized User on his account. But due to the fact that I myself had never received a SW bonus card ever, I was able to take advantage of the recent CP card offer. The standard has been 'cannot have received a bonus in the past 24 months' for the same branded card. This is why we never, ever, establish joint credit. We also regularly take advantage of the Chase Disney Visa offers, just trading off on who holds the card, when the fabulous no fee offer arrives in the mail, paying attention to the 24 month rule. This has netted us $700 in free Disney gift cards over the past 2.5 years.

Just Love Disney - You will not find your SW RR# anywhere on Chase's site, but the miles will transfer automatically every month after statement close. Rather quickly too!

Last night I booked the San Francisco flights for DS and I, and I can't wait until we receive the CP so I can just throw DH on our res as well. Using available points, travel funds, and the annual $75 travel credit that we'll get back, a whopping total of $37 out of pocket. I LUV Southwest!
 

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