You may think "Oh I know how to travel for free using credit card points," but I'm about to tell you about a credit card that provides you with a FREE companion pass. I recently found out that the companion pass offer is BACK. Since it's back, I've decided to share this secret with you all. I want my readers to take advantage of this opportunity, so I will share what the companion pass is, and how I can travel for free, year-round, with a family of five.
About the Companion Pass
The companion pass is a pass that Southwest airline gives you. I don't know of any other airlines that offer this pass, so I'll tell you what I know about the pass with Southwest.
Once they give you the pass, you only have a certain amount of time to use it, and during that time, your companion pass holder can travel for free with you. This means if you are traveling either with a paid ticket, or with points, your companion can travel for free, and there are no points deducted from your account. Remember that the companion pass is only available for a certain amount of time.
The great thing about the companion pass is that you can choose anyone you want to be your companion pass holder. You can choose your friend, your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your children, basically, anyone you want. Just put in their name as the companion pass holder, and have them fly for free every time you fly. I personally chose my husband to be my companion pass holder, but I did travel once with a friend, and when I traveled with her, I changed it to where she could be the companion pass holder. You can actually change who your companion pass holder is up to three times a year. For example, my husband is my typical companion pass holder, but if I wanted to change it to where my daughter was the companion pass holder, I'd change the name to my daughter's name, and I have up to three changes.
When you use the companion pass, you do still pay taxes, just like if you were paying with points. With Southwest, I've only had to pay $11.20. This means that whenever I travel I pay the $11.20 either if I'm using the companion pass, or if I'm paying with points, and the rest of the ticket is completely free. If you want to travel for free with your family, you can pay for yourself and your kids with points-, and can have your spouse as your companion pass holder (this is what I've done). When we traveled to California, we did a two-week road trip, and we traveled with three kids and two adults. I paid for myself and my kids with points- I didn't pay anything besides taxes- and for my husband, I used the companion pass. Like this, all of our tickets were free, and we only had to pay $55.80 for round-trip tickets from Atlanta to California. $55 for 5 people to fly round-trip is an amazing deal!
Why I love traveling with Southwest
Now, I want to tell you why we love traveling with Southwest, so here is a list of all the things I like about Southwest.
The number one reason why I like to travel with Southwest is the companion pass, like, hello?? You get a free companion pass. With other airlines, you get a credit card and they give you points, and you can purchase tickets with the points, but with the companion pass you're not using points. You can literally buy your ticket and have someone fly with you for free, year-round. You don't need to use points with the companion pass, so that's a big plus with Southwest.
Another reason I like to fly with Southwest is the two FREE checked bags. A lot of airlines charge you for checking in your bags, but with Southwest, you get two free checked bags PER PERSON. Whenever I travel with my family, I'm never thinking that I can't pack too much-, and that we have limited bag space. I mean, I have a family of five, so we are always packing a lot of things when we travel, and we don't want to feel limited when we are packing for a trip. Not only do you get two free checked bags, but you also get your carry-on for free. With our family of five, we get a total of ten free checked bags, and five free carry-ons. That's 15 total bags we can take for FREE, plus our purse, bookbag, or other personal items. For each checked bag there is a 50-pound weight limit, which is pretty good, so you can take two 50-pound bags for free, and that's for everyone flying with Southwest. Whether or not you have a credit card.
A third reason is that Southwest is family oriented. I used to travel a lot whenever my kids were younger, and if you have younger kids, you have priority when being seated. The way passengers are seated is different from other airlines, so when you are traveling with a different airline, you print out your ticket, they tell you what aisle and number you are sitting in, and you already know where you're going to sit. Southwest doesn't work like that. They give you a number and a letter on your ticket, and that tells you where you stand in the line when boarding the plane. The order, for example, would be set up as A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, etcetera, so whoever is first in line gets to board the airplane first- and get to choose what seat they want. The people that are last in the line have to board the airplane last and have to sit in whatever seats are left. You can always purchase priority seating before boarding the plane, but if you have a family with younger kids- less than five years- you automatically get priority to board the plane, and you can choose whatever seat you want before everybody else boards the plane.
All in all, there are just so many reasons why we love to travel with Southwest: they are family-oriented, they offer the companion pass, we have the two free checked bags, and the free carry-ons.
How to get the Companion Pass
I want to share with you all a promotion that Southwest currently has going on- this is the main reason I am writing this blog- so you can get a companion pass ASAP. **ANYONE THAT APPLIES FOR A PERSONAL CREDIT CARD GETS A COMPANION PASS, RIGHT NOW, PLUS 30,000 POINTS.** This companion pass is available until February 28th, 2024. This means that you have the whole year of 2023 to travel for FREE. You can apply for a credit card here before March 19th, 2023. If you apply after March 19th, the offer is over. The last time they had this offer was last year in March, so they only do this offer once a year at the beginning of the year. This means that if you want to travel for free in 2023 using points and a companion pass, you need to apply for the credit card ASAP. Once again, here is the link to apply.
If you want to receive more points than the 30,000 you get with the personal credit card, you can apply for a business credit card; however, you must have an EIN to apply. You can apply for both credit cards on the same day, that's how I did it when I applied for the Southwest credit card. I applied for a personal credit card, and a business credit card, so I took advantage of the extra points and the companion pass. If you get the premier business credit card, you get 60,000 points plus the 30,000 you get if you apply for the personal credit card. You can even get 80,000 points if you apply for the performance business credit card with Southwest. Basically, you get 30k points plus the companion pass when you apply for any personal credit card, but you get the extra 60k-80k points with the business credit cards. In total, you can earn up to 110,000 points to travel for yourself and your kids, plus the companion pass for your spouse.
I am really excited about this deal, so I wanted to share it with all my readers. My husband and I actually went to New York for Valentine's Day. We booked two round-trip tickets to New York from Atlanta, and we only paid $22.40. So basically, we used our points and the companion pass and only paid for taxes. It's so nice to be able to travel somewhere and not have to worry about how much we have to pay for tickets because we already have the points AND the companions pass.