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November 13, 2024: The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card has a new sign-up bonus offer with an interesting twist. Unlike previous offers, you have four months to earn the bonus and the new offer includes both bonus miles and a statement credit. This is undoubtedly a great offer, but a blow to people who were hoping to earn an elevated sign-up bonus that could get them a lot closer to getting a companion pass.
Here’s the best available sign-up bonus on the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card:
Annual fee: annual_fees
Best sign-up bonus: bonus_miles_full
This bonus is earned as Southwest Rapid Rewards points.
In this article…
Our take: Best value card for Southwest flyers, not great timing for companion pass
The $400 + 40k miles offer is a new take on an increased welcome offer on the Southwest cards. In fact, we haven’t seen a similarly-structured bonus that combines a statement credit with bonus miles on the Southwest personal cards since we started tracking the bonuses on these cards.
Unfortunately, for those looking to juice their companion pass qualifying miles by earning the bonus in January of 2025, this bonus structure makes that harder. And arguably it’s a worse bonus than the standard bonus if that is your goal. But maybe that’s the point.
Historically, it’s been very easy to earn a Southwest companion pass at the end of the year by getting both a personal and a business Southwest Airlines credit card. By offering a statement credit in addition to bonus miles, Chase and Southwest are able to offer a more attractive bonus without making it easier to earn a companion pass for two years.
If you’re not after a companion pass, now’s a great time to get the card. But if getting a companion pass for almost two years is your objective, it might be worthwhile to wait for the standard bonus to return.
The best value for Southwest flyers: Anniversary points and Southwest travel credit
Despite having the highest annual fee of all of the Southwest personal credit cards, we think that the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card offers the best value for Southwest flyers.
Here’s why: You’ll easily get back value in excess of the annual fee from the anniversary points and Southwest travel credit alone, before even considering the cards’ other perks.
With the Priority card, you’ll get a $75 annual Southwest travel credit and 7,500 anniversary bonus points. If you’re spending at least $75 on Southwest flight each year, you should have no problem using the travel credit and you’ll easily get more than $75 worth of flights out of the points. That covers the card’s annual fee (annual_fees) before you even consider any of the other benefits of the card.
In contrast, the lower tiers of the Southwest credit cards don’t offer as many anniversary points relative to their annual fees, which mean that you need to find value in other perks to justify paying those cards’ annual fees.
About the card: Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card at a glance
Annual fee: annual_fees
Foreign transaction fee: foreign_transaction_fee
The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card offers consistent value to Southwest flyers thanks to its 7,500 point anniversary bonus and the $75 annual Southwest travel credit you’ll get for having the card.
Sign-up bonus
Best sign-up bonus: bonus_miles_full
This bonus is earned as Southwest Rapid Rewards points.
Rewards
- 3x on Southwest purchases
- 2x on Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partner purchases.
- 2x on local transit and commuting, including rideshare.
- 2x on internet, cable, and phone services; select streaming.
- 1x on other purchases.
Rewards are earned as Southwest Rapid Rewards® points.
Benefits
Southwest Airlines benefits
- 25% back on inflight purchases on Southwest.
- 10,000 qualifying point boost toward Companion Pass each year.
- 4 Upgraded Boardings per year when available.
- $75 Southwest annual travel credit.
- Earn 1,500 tier qualifying points towards A-List status for every $5,000 spent annually.
Consumer insurance benefits
Travel insurance benefits
- Lost luggage reimbursement.
- Baggage delay insurance.
Partner benefits and statement credits
- One-year complimentary DashPass membership. After your complimentary year, you will be automatically enrolled in DashPass at the current monthly rate. Activate by 12/31/24.
Are you eligible to earn the sign-up bonus?
In most cases, you should be eligible to earn a sign-up bonus if it’s been more than 24 months since you last earned a Southwest credit card sign-up bonus and you do not currently have a Southwest personal credit card.
- You can only have one personal Southwest Rapid Rewards® Credit Card. Chase will not issue a new personal Southwest credit card if you already hold one.
- You can not have received a Southwest Rapid Rewards® new cardmember bonus in the past 24 months. If you have received a Southwest personal credit card bonus in the past and want to receive a welcome bonus, be sure to apply more than 24 months after you were last awarded a bonus.
- You can earn a bonus on both a business card and a personal credit card. Holding or earning a bonus on a Southwest Rapid Rewards® business credit card doesn’t impact your ability to earn a bonus on a personal credit card.
Here’s the exact language from the bonus terms and conditions:
The product is not available to either (i) current Cardmembers of any Southwest Rapid Rewards® Credit Card, or (ii) previous Cardmembers of any Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit Card who received a new Cardmember bonus within the last 24 months. This does not apply to Cardmembers of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Business Card and Employee Credit Card products.
How to use Southwest Rapid Rewards points
The Southwest Rapid Rewards points you’ll earn with the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card are incredibly easy to use for flights. Here’s what we like best about Rapid Rewards points:
- You’ll get consistent value. On average, you’ll get about 1.3-1.4 cents per point of value from each of your points. (10,000 points can get you a flight with a cash price of around $130-$140.
- Rapid Rewards points don’t expire.
- If you cancel your flight, you get your points back. Any Southwest flight can be canceled up to 10 minutes prior to departure. If the flight was booked with your Rapid Rewards points, the points will be returned to you account.
To use Southwest Rapid Rewards points for flights, simply select “Points” when booking any flight at Southwest.com. You can also toggle between seeing flights priced in dollars and flights priced in points during the booking process.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The bonus points you earn with this card’s new cardmember incentive count toward companion pass.
If you fly Southwest consistently, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card will provide more value on an ongoing basis. These two cards currently have the same sign-up bonus.
Advertiser disclosure: Cards and Points has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Cards and Points and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers. Compensation may affect how and where card products appear on the site. The site does not include all card companies or all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to all credit card benefits.
