Strategy · Southwest

The Companion Pass Is Still Worth It, Even After Everything Southwest Changed

They changed a lot, bags aren’t free anymore and the seats are assigned now, but they didn’t touch the one thing that matters most for families.

We took our family to Hawaii a couple years ago, six of us, and the babies stayed home but the big kids got their first taste of the islands, and we got there almost entirely on points.

It was honestly such a high. I had a spreadsheet with everyone’s name on it and how many points each person would need, and I just started working through it card by card, and for us it was the Southwest cards that made it happen. We used the Companion Pass twice, Chris flew with one kid and I flew with another, and that left a couple kids where we had to transfer points from other cards to cover their flights. But we did it, Hawaii, six of us, for not very much money, and that trip changed the way I think about travel.

So yeah, I have a soft spot for the Companion Pass, but I also want to be honest with you, because Southwest has had a rough couple of years and I’ve been sitting on this post trying to figure out how to say it without sounding like I’m making excuses for an airline.

What Southwest changed

The biggest thing is that free checked bags are gone. That was Southwest’s whole thing for years, you flew them and everyone got two bags free and there was no drama, and that ended in May 2025, and since April 2026 it’s $45 for your first bag and $55 for your second. If you have a Southwest card you still get the first bag free (and so do up to 8 people on the same reservation), so if you have the card you’re mostly okay, but it isn’t automatic anymore for everyone on the plane.

They also cut the earning rates on Wanna Get Away fares, which are the cheap tickets most people book, and you used to earn 6 points per dollar on those and now it’s lower, so if you were earning your points mostly through flying, that one hurts.

And open seating is gone too, assigned seats started on January 27 of 2026 and family boarding and EarlyBird went away with it, so a thing that made Southwest feel like Southwest just isn’t there anymore.

So yeah, it’s been a rough stretch for anyone who loves Southwest.

but here’s what they left alone

The Companion Pass, same 135,000 point threshold and same rules and the same almost two years of free travel, so everything I really care about with Southwest is still there.

How the Companion Pass works

You earn 135,000 qualifying Southwest points in a single calendar year (or fly 100 qualifying one way flights, which is a LOT of flying) and you get the Companion Pass, and if you have a Southwest credit card you get a 10,000 point boost every year, so really it’s 125,000 you need. One person you pick flies with you on every Southwest flight, every single time, paying only the taxes and fees, which can be as little as $5.60 each way on a domestic flight, and it lasts for the rest of that year plus all of the next one.

Earn it in January and you have almost two full years, and that’s every flight you take on Southwest during that whole stretch with your companion flying basically free.

For a family that travels together, or a couple that takes a few trips a year, the math adds up fast, and we used ours to get two people to Hawaii and then we used those same passes again on other trips that year.

How people really earn it

You can’t realistically earn 135,000 points through flying alone, so the way most people do it is through the credit card bonuses, and Southwest has a few personal cards and a business card, and right now the sign up bonuses combined (plus that 10,000 cardholder boost) can get you basically all the way there without a single flight.

1
Open a Southwest personal card. Right now the Plus is 50,000 points after $1,000 in 3 months ($99 fee), the Premier is 55,000 after $1,500 ($149) and the Priority is 60,000 after $2,000 ($229, that fee went up last year), and the spend you put on the card counts toward your 135,000 too. One thing to know is Chase won’t give you a new personal Southwest bonus if you already have a personal Southwest card open or got one’s bonus in the last 24 months, so you only get one personal card in this plan.
2
Open the Southwest business card. The Performance Business is 80,000 points after $5,000 in 3 months ($299 fee), plus whatever you spend to hit the minimum, and the business card does not count against your Chase 5/24 limit, so you use one personal slot for the personal card and the business card doesn’t cost you a slot at all.
3
Earn through regular spending. Regular purchases on both cards earn points too, and between the two bonuses and the 10,000 boost and your everyday spending, hitting 135,000 is very doable if you time it right and start early in the year.
4
Earn it early. The pass lasts through the end of that calendar year and all of the next, so earn it in January and you get nearly two years, and earn it in November and you’ve lost almost a whole year of it before you ever use it, so the timing matters a lot here.

Ready to go after the Companion Pass? Right now it’s 50,000 to 60,000 points on the Southwest personal cards and 80,000 on the Performance Business card.

Apply with Amy’s link →
the 5/24 thing to know

The Southwest personal card does eat one of your Chase 5/24 slots and the business card doesn’t, so if you’re planning out your card sequence you want to already have your Chase Sapphire Preferred before you open the Southwest personal, and honestly I’d get the Sapphire first every time. Apply for the Sapphire Preferred with my link →

Is it still worth it in 2026?

For us, yes. I wouldn’t build my whole strategy around Southwest the way I might have a few years ago, because the program is less generous than it used to be and I think that’s just the reality now, but the Companion Pass itself hasn’t changed, and for a family that travels together it’s still one of the better deals out there.

check their routes first

Southwest is almost entirely domestic, they don’t fly everywhere and they don’t fly internationally except for a handful of Caribbean spots, so before you commit to this whole strategy pull up their route map and make sure they fly where your family wants to go.

We used ours for Hawaii and we’ve used it to visit family and we’ve used it for quick weekend trips where flying two people would have cost real money, and every time the pass works it feels like a win. That feeling of getting your family somewhere you couldn’t have afforded otherwise is exactly why I started learning about points in the first place.

I’ll update this if Southwest changes the pass itself, but right now, in September 2026, it’s still real and it’s still worth going after.

xo, Amy
More from the Points Room The Chase 5/24 rule, read this one first → The cards Amy really uses → Plan a trip with your points →