A Year of Free Flights on Southwest

What is a Southwest Companion Pass?

A Southwest Companion Pass is a benefit of being loyal to Southwest Airlines. It gives you the opportunity to have a companion of your choice fly for free with you – from the time you achieve Companion Pass status through the following calendar year. For example, if you qualify in October 2022, you can have your companion fly free starting in October 2022 through December 2023. (You still have to pay the taxes and fees, but they are minimal.)

How to Get a Southwest Companion Pass and free Flights

To qualify for a Companion Pass, you have to either, fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 125,000 qualifying points in a calendar year. Flying 100 flights is not easy; but, getting to 125,000 points is entirely doable. Here’s how:

First, sign up to be a Rapid Rewards member. Be sure to include your Rapid Rewards account number whenever you book a flight on Southwest so your account gets the credit for the flight.

Second, get a Southwest Airlines credit card. Use it to pay for everything that you typically pay with a credit card. It’s amazing how fast the points accumulate. (Important – Do not spend beyond your means. Only use this method if you are able to pay off your balance each month.)

Third, install the Rapid Reward Shopping Button extension on your computer. When this is active, a pop-up window will display whenever you are on a site that you can get bonus Rapid Rewards points when you make a purchase using your Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards credit card.

The points accumulate through the calendar year, so you have January through December to qualify. Throughout the year, check your progress on your Southwest account. Trust me, you’ll be excited when it looks like this:

Tips for Using Your Southwest Airlines Companion Pass

Once you reach Companion Status level, you need to designate your companion. This should be someone that you travel with frequently. You can change the companion up to three times during the year, but upcoming travel with the original companion must be canceled before changing your companion.

To get a Companion Pass, you will need to first book your flight; then add your companion to your flight. Be sure that the flight you are booking has plenty of seats. (If it says 2 seats remaining when you book your flight, you might want to consider a different flight.)

It helps to book each leg as a one-way flight for you and your companion. If you need to make changes to your itinerary, it is much easier to do with one portion of the itinerary instead of having to cancel an entire itinerary and starting over. For example, if I book a trip back home, I book a one-way flight from Phoenix to Baltimore and then another one-way flight from Baltimore to Phoenix.

If a flight needs to be changed:

• Cancel the companion’s ticket first to “unlink” it from the primary ticket holder’s ticket
• Make the necessary adjustments to the primary ticket-holder’s plans
• Re-add the companion to the primary ticket-holder’s flight

Your companion’s ticket will have a unique confirmation number; so when you take your trip, your companion will need to check in for the flight(s) separately.

For EarlyBird Check-In (which is an add on to a ticket that gives you access to earlier boarding) – we have found that it isn’t necessary to add on EarlyBird for a companion if the person with the Companion Fare status is A-List status. I haven’t found any documentation to confirm this; however, because The Mister is A-List, we have not purchased EarlyBird for me (the companion), and I always receive a boarding number right after The Mister’s.

(Note – After this post was published, Southwest has since announced that Companions may now board with Companion Pass holders – making it official. There are a few exceptions – see the Southwest Airlines web site for more information.)

All of this is based on our personal experiences. For more information and details on how the Companion Pass program works, check the Southwest Airlines web site.

Where Free Flights on Southwest took Us This Year

The best thing about the Companion Pass, is that it makes travel such an easy decision. Trips that we might have passed on, were easy to take because my ticket was always free.

This is how we used our Companion Pass free flights this year:

• Phoenix to Delaware (via Baltimore) for a big birthday celebration with my parents
• Phoenix to Pittsburgh for a family wedding
• Pittsburgh to Louisville for our niece’s high school graduation
• Phoenix to Bozeman, Montana to see Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons
• Phoenix to Park City, Utah (via Salt Lake City) for a week of vacation (Check out our post about this great vacation destination.)
• Phoenix to Pittsburgh for a funeral
• Phoenix to LA for the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert

And we aren’t done. It’s been an amazing year and we can’t wait to see where our free flights take us in 2023!