Your full information to maximizing Southwest Speedy Rewards

Like JetBlue’s TrueBlue program, all Southwest award tickets are priced based mostly on the ticket’s money worth. This implies the dearer the ticket you wish to e book, the extra factors you’ll want. TPG at present values Speedy Rewards factors at 1.5 cents per level, which means 10,000 factors ought to offer you round $150 in worth. Nevertheless, relying in your ticket’s worth, you might get kind of worth.

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Southwest elite standing

Along with the Companion Go, Southwest provides two elite standing tiers: A-Listing and A-Listing Most popular. Given its distinctive nature, we’ll cowl the Companion Go in its personal part.

Southwest A-Listing elite standing

To qualify for A-Listing standing, you’ll must fly 25 Southwest flights or earn 35,000 tier-qualifying factors in a calendar yr.

You will earn factors in your ticket’s base fare. The bottom fare is the ticket’s value excluding any related taxes — assume issues just like the $5.60 September 11 Safety Charge and $21.10 Worldwide Departure Tax. While you buy a Southwest ticket, you may view your flight’s base fare on the airline’s web site.

So, for those who bought a Wanna Get Away fare with a $100 base fare, you’d earn 600 Southwest Speedy Rewards factors after you’re taking your flight. Then again, 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-Listing and A-Listing Most popular elite standing earn much more miles on paid flights. Every standing tier earns the next bonus on paid flights:

• A-Listing: 25% bonus.
• A-Listing Most popular: 100% bonus.

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

Earn with Southwest bank cards

Southwest Airways has a collection of cobranded bank cards issued by Chase. Presently, the airline provides three private and two enterprise bank cards, every with various advantages, welcome bonuses and annual charges.

Right here’s a take a look at the total lineup of Southwest bank cards:

Private playing cards:

Enterprise playing cards:

Along with a pretty welcome bonus, every card has distinctive advantages. For instance, the Southwest Precedence card consists of as much as $75 in Southwest credit score, 7,500 bonus factors (value $112.50 per TPG’s valuations) and 4 upgraded boardings per yr. This utterly offsets the cardboard’s $149 annual payment and helps you earn extra factors all year long.

Moreover, you may switch factors from Chase Final Rewards to Southwest Speedy Rewards at a 1:1 switch ratio. In the event you don’t thoughts lacking out on the Southwest-specific perks, you might contemplate making use of for the Chase Sapphire Most popular Card because it earns 2 factors per greenback on journey and three factors per greenback on eating purchases. There are methods to get extra worth on your Chase Final Rewards factors, however transferring factors to Southwest is sensible if you have to high up your Speedy Rewards stability for a selected award.

Earn factors whilst you eat with Speedy Rewards Eating

Like many airways, Southwest provides a eating rewards program you may earn factors with. Create a Speedy Rewards Eating 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 factors on eating to maximise your points-earning.

Ensure to enroll in e mail notifications if you enroll in Speedy Rewards Eating. By doing so, you’ll earn 3 factors per greenback spent at collaborating eating places. Sadly, opting out of e mail notifications will drastically reduce your earnings to 1 level per $2 spent.

The Speedy Rewards Eating program provides a pretty set of welcome bonuses. You’ll earn 1,000 bonus factors after you spend $25 and evaluate a collaborating restaurant within the first 30 days, and you’ll earn further factors by leaving opinions and performing different duties. You possibly can search via all collaborating eating places on the Speedy Rewards Eating web site.

Make purchases via Speedy Rewards Purchasing

You possibly can earn bonus factors if you store on-line with Speedy Rewards Purchasing. Like Speedy Rewards Eating, the miles you’ll earn with this buying portal are along with the factors you earn with a bank card.

Utilizing Speedy Rewards Purchasing 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 every week of creating a purchase order, however some retailers might take longer to course of.

The variety of factors you’ll earn per greenback spent varies by service provider and modifications steadily. The portal typically has promotions that provide bonus factors if you spend a set amount of cash. Regulate the Speedy Rewards Purchasing web site to see when these promos are taking place.

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

Guide inns

Southwest has partnerships with among the main lodge firms. That permits you to earn Southwest Speedy Rewards factors as a substitute of lodge factors, however we do not usually advocate that.

You possibly can earn as much as 10,000 factors per night time by reserving lodge rooms with Southwest Resorts or Rocketmiles. Evaluate charges with each, and e book with whichever platform, if both, most closely fits your wants.

The variety of factors you’ll earn typically correlates to the worth of your lodge room, and also you’ll earn extra factors if you e book Factors Plus properties. Do not forget that you can not earn lodge factors or use lodge elite standing advantages on these bookings, and also you’ll usually must e book instantly with the lodge to make use of these advantages.

You possibly can e book many boutique inns via Southwest Resorts, so it might be value reserving these via Southwest Resorts in the event that they in any other case wouldn’t earn factors. Evaluate pricing with the lodge’s web site to make sure you get a comparable charge via Southwest Resorts or Rocketmiles.

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The way to redeem Southwest Speedy Rewards

Now that you just’ve earned some Speedy Rewards factors, let’s talk about how one can redeem them.

There are a number of methods to redeem your factors, however you’ll nearly all the time get essentially the most worth out of your Speedy Rewards factors for those who redeem them for journey on Southwest flights. Different redemption choices like present playing cards and merchandise will yield a lot much less worth.

You’ll see award pricing to the best of every out there flight. You possibly can filter flights by the variety of layovers and departure instances utilizing the buttons on the high of the web page. Then, click on on the ticket worth if you discover a flight you’d prefer to e book and observe the on-screen prompts.

What fare kind ought to I select?

You possibly can redeem factors for flights in any of the 4 Southwest fare sorts. Wanna Get Away — the least costly fare kind — 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 for those who cancel your flight.

Anytime fares have the identical advantages of Wanna Get Away Plus plus precedence safety and EarlyBird check-in. Anytime money fares are refundable, however keep in mind that Wanna Get Away fares are additionally refundable when reserving with factors.

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

Can I modify Southwest award tickets totally free?

Like all Southwest fares, you may change or cancel Southwest award tickets totally free. In the event you decide to vary a ticket, you’re solely accountable for paying the brand new ticket’s fare distinction if it’s dearer. Then again, for those who 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 e book a flight — if the fare goes down, you may request a refund for the extra miles.

Canceling a Southwest award ticket is simply as easy. While you cancel your ticket, the miles you used to e book 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 accountable for paying sure sorts of taxes and costs if you e book Southwest award tickets. Home awards solely cost the $5.60 September 11 Safety Charge whatever the route, however worldwide routes could be dearer. For instance, this Mexico flight is topic to $41.66 in taxes and costs because of the Mexico Tourism Tax.

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Can I redeem for accomplice award tickets?

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

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Maximize your miles with the Southwest Companion Go

You possibly can earn a Companion Go by flying 100 Southwest segments or — extra virtually for many — incomes 135,000 qualifying factors. Qualifying factors embrace Speedy Rewards factors earned by flying, spending on bank cards and earned via Speedy Rewards Eating and Speedy Rewards Purchasing.

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

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

Your Companion Go will probably be legitimate for the rest of the yr it’s earned and the whole lot of the next yr. In the event you plan on incomes your Companion Go via bank card welcome bonuses, attempt to time your spending so that you just earn the required mileage at the start of the yr. This will provide you with essentially the most time to take pleasure in your hard-earned Companion Go, since it is going to be legitimate for nearly two years.

You possibly can solely set one companion at a time, however you may change your companion 3 times per yr. You possibly can 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’ll nonetheless earn them for those who fly on a paid ticket.

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