Southwest Ends Card Bonus Credit for Companion Pass Jan. 1

Southwest Airlines will stop counting credit card welcome bonuses toward the Companion Pass on Jan. 1, 2027.

If your ad spend, software bills and inventory already run through business cards, that rule change decides whether a year of two-for-one flights costs you a few hundred dollars in fees or a six-figure spending commitment. At Ecommerce Paradise I track card and cash-flow changes like this because store owners fly to supplier visits, trade shows and nomad bases, and a free companion seat on every trip adds up.

Below: what Southwest announced on Oct. 15, how the math shifts for a store spending five figures a month, and a six-step plan for the window that is still open. I am not a financial advisor, so treat the numbers as inputs to your own decision. I covered United’s version of this squeeze on Oct. 13 in my United Premier status breakdown, and Southwest is the second major carrier in a week to move the goalposts.

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Southwest Ends Card Bonus Credit for Companion Pass in 2027

Southwest published the changes in an Oct. 15 press release and on a new set of 2027 Rapid Rewards pages. Effective Jan. 1, 2027, the airline replaces the current Companion Pass qualifying points with Tier Qualifying Points, or TQPs, and adds a new top status called Platinum.

Under the rules that run through Dec. 31, 2026, an unlimited Companion Pass requires 135,000 Companion Pass qualifying points or 100 qualifying flights, according to Southwest’s Companion Pass page. Starting in 2027, unlimited trips come with Platinum status, which takes 140,000 TQPs or 100 qualifying one-way flights. A new Milestone Reward gives three Companion Pass trips at 95,000 TQPs or 75 one-way flights.

The credit card change is the part that hits store owners. Southwest says new cardmember welcome bonuses, referral bonuses, anniversary points, and bonus points from spend and partner spend will no longer count toward the pass. In their place, every Rapid Rewards credit card earns 1 TQP per $1 spent, including the $99-fee Plus card that earns no TQPs today, per NerdWallet.

Gary Leff at View from the Wing reports that business cards earn the same 1 TQP per dollar with no cap, and that cardmembers get a one-time 10,000 TQP boost after reaching 130,000 earned TQPs in 2027. That boost is the detail most coverage skips, and it matters for the math later.

There is one grandfathering window. The Points Guy reports that cardmembers approved on or before Dec. 2, 2026, can still have welcome bonus points count toward the pass even if they finish the spending requirement in early 2027. In its Q&A on the reboot, The Points Guy adds that a pass earned this way is only good through the end of 2027. Lazy Lauren cites the same Dec. 2 date. The Companion Pass page I read does not repeat that date, so confirm it on Southwest’s 2027 FAQ before you apply for anything.

Passes earned under the 2026 rules keep unlimited trips through Dec. 31, 2027, per Southwest. That is 73 days from today to lock one in, and 44 days to the reported card-approval cutoff.

Nandika Suri, Southwest’s vice president of Rapid Rewards, framed the new structure to NerdWallet this way: “Everybody understands Silver, Gold and Platinum.” The airline also confirmed a new premium Chase card tied to Icon Lounges that open in late 2027, with the first planned for Nashville International Airport.

Southwest Companion Pass Rules: 135,000 Points to 140,000 TQPs

The old math was simple enough to game. The Companion Pass needed 135,000 qualifying points, and welcome bonuses counted. Lazy Lauren’s worked example, with card offers listed as of Oct. 8, pairs the Rapid Rewards Performance Business card (80,000 points after $5,000 in three months, $299 annual fee) with the Plus personal card (50,000 points after $1,000, $99 fee). She estimates roughly 146,000 points once spend and the existing 10,000-point boost are counted, for $398 in first-year fees.

That is the shortcut Southwest is closing. A hypothetical store owner who put $6,000 of normal business spending on two new cards could fly a companion free for the rest of the year and all of the next. Under the 2027 rules the same $6,000 earns 6,000 TQPs.

The eligibility limits already made it harder than it sounds. Lazy Lauren reports you cannot take a Southwest personal card bonus if you hold any Southwest personal card or earned a personal bonus in the last 24 months, so the workable pair is one business card and one personal card. She also notes Chase generally will not approve you if you opened five or more cards in the past 24 months.

Not everyone reads the change as a loss. Southwest’s side is that the $99 Plus card now earns status credit, which it did not before, and the 10,000 TQP boost is real value for heavy card users. The critics have numbers too. Leff calls the flight requirements for lower tiers 25 percent higher (Silver rises from 20 to 25 one-way flights), notes Choice Preferred fares drop from 10 to 8 points per base-fare dollar, and says the card path to the pass is closing. Scott Fortune, a current pass holder quoted by Thrifty Traveler, said, “It’ll be much harder for me to requalify for the Companion Pass.”

One quarter of coverage is not a verdict, and I could not find a published count of current pass holders. Treat any claim about how many people lose out as a guess. The mechanics, though, are not in dispute: the cheap route ends, and the expensive route gets a new on-ramp.

There is also a precedent on my own site. When Amex stopped pooling points on new cards, I wrote about linking accounts before you close them, and the lesson repeats here: issuers and airlines change the rules on a Monday, and the people who read the fine print early keep the old deal.

Southwest Card Spend Math for a Store Running Ads

This section is my read, not reporting. The hypothetical numbers below are mine, built from the reported rules, and your results will differ.

The headline for a store owner is that spend now counts and bonuses do not. Take a hypothetical high-ticket store that puts $10,000 a month on one Southwest business card for ad platforms, software and freight deposits. That is $120,000 of spend a year, which earns 120,000 TQPs. It clears the 95,000 milestone, so three Companion Pass trips, but it falls short of Platinum.

Add $10,000 of spend and you hit 130,000 TQPs. The one-time 10,000 TQP boost then lands you at 140,000, which is Platinum and an unlimited Companion Pass. So on the reported rules, about $130,000 of card spend in 2027 buys the unlimited pass, with no welcome bonus involved. If Southwest changes how the boost works, that number moves.

Now the cost side. A flat 2 percent cash back card on the same $130,000 returns $2,600 in cash, and that is the number to beat. The unlimited pass is worth it if you take enough paid flights with a companion that the avoided fares exceed $2,600 plus the card fees. If you fly twice a year alone, it is not. If you fly with a partner or a team member monthly, it clearly is.

Two traps deserve a warning. First, never chase spend you would not otherwise make. Carrying a balance on a card erases the value of points, and with September CPI at 3.7 percent and a Fed vote pending, cost of funds is not going down fast. Second, card rewards do not fix thin margins. My lean first-year budget for a high-ticket store shows where cash goes first, and travel perks come after that.

The better frame for most readers is category by category. Your Shopify plan is predictable monthly card spend, and so is your email platform. Klaviyo bills scale with your list.

Supplier payments abroad often run through Wise instead, which means they may not earn card rewards at all. Mapping your real card spend before you pick a card is the step people skip.

Hotels are the other half of a travel budget, and Southwest does not cover them. If you pick Southwest for flights, pair it with a hotel program that matches where you stay, whether that is Marriott for the widest footprint or another chain.

My guide to redeeming airline points for maximum value walks through valuing points against cash fares. My airline rewards program comparison puts Southwest next to United, Alaska and the rest.

Who should ignore all of this? Owners whose travel is one or two trips a year, owners who already carry a balance, and anyone whose store is still under a few thousand dollars a month in card spend. For those readers the right move is a simple cash back card and more time on the store. A free companion seat is a nice perk, and a profitable niche is the actual business, so start with my high-ticket niches list if you are still choosing one.

The real lesson is operational. Anyone planning travel around a loyalty program is renting a benefit the airline can rewrite. Owners who build a business that does not depend on perks tend to sleep better. That is the point of a proper high-ticket store with systems and suppliers handled, and if you want that built for you, take a look at my turnkey done-for-you store build.

Choosing business cards before Southwest’s Dec. 2 reported cutoff? Compare the offers I track before you apply. See my credit card picks →

Southwest Companion Pass Plan Before the Dec. 2 Deadline

Six moves, in order. Skip the card steps entirely if the math above says cash back wins for you.

Pull your last 12 months of card spend by category. QuickBooks exports it in minutes. Finaloop does too. You need the annual total to know whether 130,000 TQPs is realistic.
Count your paid flights. Write down how many one-way trips you took last year and how many had a companion. If it is fewer than a dozen, the unlimited pass probably does not pay for itself.
Check eligibility before you apply. Confirm you have not taken a Southwest personal card bonus in 24 months, and count the cards you opened in that period, since Chase may decline five or more. Look at your business credit profile with Nav so the application does not surprise you.
If you want the old route, confirm the Dec. 2 date on Southwest’s 2027 FAQ, then get both card approvals in by then. Aim to finish the minimum spend so points post before Dec. 31 if you want the pass in 2026, since Lazy Lauren notes posting can lag.
Match the card to the entity. Apply the business card under the business, not your personal name alone, and keep that spend on one card so tracking stays clean. If you do not have an entity yet, my guide to forming your business is the place to start.
Get a second opinion if the math is close. I walk store owners through this kind of tradeoff on a discovery call, usually alongside their ad spend and margin numbers.

Business card terms are shifting fast this month. I covered the Amex Blue Business 50,000-point offers already. The Venture X Business $500 credit is in that pile too.

The Amex Business Gold swap of FedEx for UPS in its $240 credit is worth a look if freight is a big line in your budget.

Frequently Asked Questions

When do the Southwest Companion Pass changes take effect?
January 1, 2027, according to Southwest’s 2027 Rapid Rewards pages. Current rules, including Companion Pass qualifying points and card bonuses, run through Dec. 31, 2026.

Will my 2026 Companion Pass still work in 2027?
Yes. Southwest says passes earned in 2026 give unlimited trips through Dec. 31, 2027. A pass you earn through the Dec. 2 grandfathering route is also reported to run through the end of 2027.

Do Southwest business cards still earn toward status?
Per View from the Wing, business cards earn 1 TQP per dollar with no cap starting in 2027. Welcome bonuses on those cards stop counting after the cutoff.

Should an ecommerce owner open a Southwest card just for the pass?
Only if you would fly enough paid trips to beat what the same spend returns in cash. Run the numbers from step one of the plan first, and consider a free niche list if the real goal is a store that earns enough to make perks irrelevant.

What if I am a digital nomad flying internationally?
Southwest’s international partners, Icelandair, China Airlines and Etihad, begin in spring 2027, and Companion Passes cannot be used on those flights, per NerdWallet. Pair travel plans with the right health coverage, and see my AI travel planner roundup for how I plan trips around a store.

Is it better to put ad spend on a rewards card?
It can be, if you pay the balance in full every month and the processor does not add a surcharge. Compare it against cash back and your cash-flow cushion before moving large budgets.

Want to talk through your card strategy and your store’s numbers one on one? That includes the money decisions around cards, cash flow and ad budgets. Get the coaching details →

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Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.