10xTravel Team: What Are Our Experiences with the Southwest Companion Pass?

We talk about it every fall: the Southwest Companion Pass. With great precision and strategy, you can earn the Southwest Companion Pass for almost two years! That’s buy-one-get-one-free (plus taxes/fees) tickets for you and your companion on every Southwest Airlines flight you take. What’s not to love about that?

Many of the 10xTravel team members have earned the Companion Pass over the years or are working on earning it for next year. So let’s hear from some of our team members about their experiences with the Southwest Companion Pass.

Emily Jaeckel

The Southwest Companion Pass has been a crucial part of my travel strategy for the past five years. Being Denver-based is a big reason for this. Southwest covers me for nearly all of my domestic travel with more than 90 nonstop routes from Denver.

In 2023, the Companion Pass made it a no-brainer for me and my P2 to take 11 one-way flights to weddings, vacations and family visits. We traveled to San Diego; Charleston, South Carolina; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; New York City; Buffalo, New York; and San Jose, California, all without spending more than $5.60 per person per direction. Each one of these flights could have easily been $200+ per person each way, so this perk is a major money saver. I can confidently say that without the Companion Pass, there would be a lot less travel in our lives.

At the end of 2023, it was time to re-earn the Companion Pass, but this time under my P2’s name. He started by applying for the Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card in October 2023 but made the common mistake of hitting minimum spend too early, and thus the points posted to his Rapid Rewards in 2023 rather than 2024.

What happened was we made a large purchase with the card that we had to return and repurchase. We mistakenly assumed that the returned amount would keep us under the minimum spend amount, but it wasn’t the case. When we realized our mistake, we quickly started brainstorming solutions.

Since my P2 had started with one of the business cards and there aren’t any restrictions limiting you from getting both, he was able to salvage the situation by applying for the Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card and the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card in early 2024 to get close to the 135,000 Rapid Rewards points needed for the Companion Pass.

For the remaining points needed to earn the Companion Pass, my P2 used Rocket Miles to rebook some of our existing hotel stays, opting to earn Rapid Rewards points on the stays. All turned out well in the end with us earning the Companion Pass in March 2024 and his Rapid Rewards account stacked with almost 200,000 points. So far this year, we’ve already taken eight one-way flights and are planning more to add next year.

The Companion Pass was one of the first perks I heavily focused on when I first started out in points and miles, and I highly recommend it for anyone starting to dip their toes into the hobby. It’s a fantastic way to quickly prove out the power of traveling with points and miles. If you have a P2, this perk is an especially convincing way to get them on board before you start leveling up to international business-class flights.

Travis Cormier

I jumped on the Companion Pass bandwagon for the first time back in 2020, right before the world decided to hit pause. Even though earning it at the beginning of the pandemic wasn’t ideal, the pass quickly became a game-changer for those last-minute weekend escapes and spontaneous trips.

One of my most memorable trips was a birthday getaway to Miami for my wife’s 30th. It was one of those trips where everything went wrong—from delayed flights to getting swarmed by bugs in the Everglades National Park—but we laugh about it now, and it’s a story we love to tell.

Living in Houston, with Hobby Airport as a Southwest hub, made it so easy to jump on a plane for quick getaways, especially when the Companion Pass meant my wife could fly with me for practically nothing. We went to Mexico probably a dozen times with our Companion Pass.

That said, I haven’t gone after the Companion Pass this year. While it’s been great for domestic travel, we ran into a few challenges when it came to international trips.

For example, flights to Central America and the Caribbean—places we really wanted to explore—were sometimes available only once a week during the off-season. That made planning around it tricky. However, domestically, it’s been a breeze to use with plenty of flight options. The one place we were really hoping to use it for was Hawaii, but for one reason or another, the trip never materialized.

Although I haven’t renewed my Companion Pass recently, mainly because of Southwest’s open seating policy (as a tall guy, I care a lot about my legroom), but the news of assigned seating and potential extra legroom has me rethinking that decision. With these changes, the pass could be an even better deal, especially for travelers like me who appreciate a bit more predictability.

Overall, the Companion Pass is a great tool in points and miles and one that I still recommend to people. I only passed on it because I’d rather fly another airline for the legroom, not because I couldn’t get good value from it. It’s a fantastic benefit for anyone looking to maximize their travel while keeping costs low. Whether it’s spontaneous weekend trips or positioning flights for long-haul international award flights, the pass is packed with value.

If you’re thinking about going after the Companion Pass, I’d say go for it. Even during tough times during the pandemic, it still opened doors to adventure and made for lasting memories—even if it is memories of being swarmed by mosquitos.

Bryce Conway

The Southwest Companion Pass has been a total game-changer for me over the past 10+ years that I have been actively participating in points and miles. It was one of the first “big” points and miles strategies that I tried (and I even screwed it up the first time). My wife and I have basically had at least one active Companion Pass between the two of us for the past decade straight.

However, I recently decided to forgo earning a Companion Pass for 2025-2026. More on that in a moment.

Anyway, if there was some sort of leaderboard for most uses of the Southwest Companion Pass over the past 10 years, I have to think that my name would be somewhere near the top. My uses for it evolved over time as I have gone from a solo “weekend warrior” traveler to a family traveler with three kids tagging along on most trips.

My early uses of the Southwest Companion Pass were mainly for weekend trips to visit friends and attend weddings. It allowed me to view a flight to another city as if it were an Uber ride. It was relatively cheap and removing that barrier allowed me to say “yes” to nearly every opportunity to get away for a weekend.

College friends all getting together in Vegas? Yes. (And then yes again four months later.)

Destination wedding in Napa? Yes again. Allowing me to be with friends and family for a special occasion without breaking the bank.

Quick weekend trips with my wife to Nashville, Tennessee; Miami; New York City; Washington D.C.; Chicago; San Diego; Boston; Cancun, Mexico; and most other popular destinations served by Southwest—all booked with Southwest points with a companion tagging along.

Then kids entered my life, and our use of the Southwest Companion Pass shifted more toward trips to visit family or to take the kids on vacation to places like Hawaii and Disney World. The money that we were able to save, thanks to the Southwest Companion Pass, made it easier to say yes to the little extras like resort activities and character dining experiences.

And on a much less glamorous note, but equally useful, Companion Pass has been incredibly helpful with repositioning flights both before and after having kids.

Living in Columbus, Ohio, we often have to take a short hop to Chicago, Washington or New York to score some of the best points and miles deals for international travel, particularly when we want to fly in a premium cabin.

But sadly, my “Companion Pass Era” has come to an end. At least for now. I made the decision not to pursue another Companion Pass next year mainly because the incremental value it offers has diminished now that I have three daughters.

It’s one thing to effectively have “buy one, get one free” with two travelers, but having to account for five travelers now (two adults and three kids) makes that one free ticket less impactful to our overall decision making.

In many cases, I would gladly pay about 20% more to be able to choose a more convenient departure time or itinerary. But I’ll always have a deep love for the Southwest Companion Pass and the many things it allowed me to do. I fully expect to earn another one (or two, or three, or five) in my future.

Alexander Yu

Compared to many others, I’m quite late on the Southwest Companion Pass hype train, but better late than never I suppose. I earned my first ever Southwest Companion Pass in early 2024, so I’ll have it in my back pocket through 2025.

Admittedly, I haven’t maximized the Companion Pass as much as I would’ve liked. That is, in big part, due to the fact that I live in San Francisco (SFO). I’ve found that direct Southwest flights out of San Francisco International Airport aren’t nearly as abundant as they are in the other two Bay Area airports, Oakland International Airport (OAK) and San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC).

That’s why it’s really important to know what Southwest routes are available at your home airport. I can unlock many more routes by getting to Oakland and San Jose, but that feels a bit like unnecessary commuting that I wouldn’t have had to consider if I didn’t hold the Companion Pass. Of course, I’d miss out on significant airfare savings, too, but the tradeoff here is the extra time and money it takes to navigate Bay Area traffic to get to these airports.

Despite all that, the Companion Pass can still offer great value that outweighs the cost to use a different airport. For example, my wife and I were able to utilize the Companion Pass for a late summer getaway in Hawaii with the unique Southwest route between Oakland and Lihue, Kauai. From there, we island hopped from Lihue to Honolulu, which we probably wouldn’t have tacked on to our trip if not for the Companion Pass.

I’m also traveling a lot domestically in October with my brother to chase artists on tour (unfortunately, San Francisco is being left out of more and more live music tours). After I switched my companion to my brother, I still remember my mom’s disbelief when I told her that all of the following Southwest flights for the two of us cost just over $25 out of pocket:

• San Jose – Salt Lake City
• Salt Lake City – San Jose
• San Francisco – Las Vegas
• Las Vegas – Los Angeles
• Los Angeles – San Jose

Domestically, you can’t beat these savings. I’ve saved so much on domestic airfare this year just by earning the Companion Pass, and I haven’t even tried to maximize it yet. The only downside would be the relative lack of destinations from my home airport of San Francisco, so this is definitely something to consider if you plan on working toward Companion Pass soon.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, many of our team members have earned the Southwest Companion Pass over the years. Although not everyone opted in again this season, they all found great value in it when they had it.

That’s not to say the Companion Pass is for everyone. Some travelers don’t find it appealing because of where they live and the available destinations from their home airport. Others have different needs that Southwest or the Companion Pass just don’t quite fit with, and that’s OK, too.

The Companion Pass is one tool in your points and miles toolbelt that you can use to help lower your overall travel expenses.