2015 Southwest Companion Pass – Business Card Update

A couple weeks ago I wrote about our plans to get a companion pass to replace Bonnie’s current pass which expires at the end of this year.

Several readers have contacted me for tips and clarification on timing that spending, but it’s pretty straightforward. It’s even more so for anyone applying now: don’t hit the $2000 spending until early January 2015. A few also asked me to notify them when the business card is available. Now it is! Yesterday on Flyertalk, Gary Steiger of Free Frequent Flyer Miles posted the Southwest Premier business credit card application link that was emailed to him. His comment there indicates the annual fee is waived the first year, which would be a first for Southwest 50K card offers and make getting the companion pass an even better deal! Update: as usual, the $99 annual fee is not waived on this offer, and all four Southwest cards now have 50K bonus offers.

While the referral offers for the Plus card with a $69 annual fee and for the Premier card have expired, the link from my previous post still works for the personal Premier card. If you wanted to get both the personal and business cards at the same time and expect to be able to be approved for both, both are available now. If you are following the same plan we are by getting the personal card first and then the business card 30+ days later, this business card offer is reported to expire November 8. Some banks pull offers prior to the advertized ‘apply by’ date but Chase generally does not. I expect this link to work until then, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see public 50K offers back on all four cards by mid-November. Chase isn’t stupid, they know many people will open new cards for holiday spending, and they want as much of that pie as they can get.

Note that this business card offer does not have a landing page that spells out the offer details. If you want to be 100% certain that the bonus on this offer is indeed 50,000 points, and clarification on the annual fee waiver, you’ll have to wait until someone else applies, gets confirmation from Chase and then posts their datapoints. I trust Free Frequent Flyer Miles and we’ll plan to apply for this one in late October, a little over a month after our last Chase application. And I know that Chase is good about matching bonuses within 60 days so if something goes wrong with an application and then another 50,000 point offer is released, a simple secure message to Chase should make sure you get the full bonus.

Please make sure that whatever card(s) you use, you aren’t one of the many who overspend because they view the credit line as money they can spend whether they actually have it or not! At best, no rewards are worth the interest. And that’s not even considering the bottomless pit that credit card debt can become.

Southwest is our favorite airline for domestic travel as I’ve written about here. Seats are available, booking is straightforward and simple, bags are free (if we ever get around to checking any), kids are welcome, and the whole airline is just generally friendly. This companion pass that gets us buy one get one free ($5.60, I know) on any plane to anywhere any time is just an amazing perk that makes it that much better!

Southwest route map, with Costa Rica to be added in March!