100K Southwest Credit Card Offer

Last week Southwest launched the largest credit card offer we have ever seen on their personal cards. There is no doubt that the new 100K Southwest credit card offer is tempting just based on sheer amount of Rapid Rewards points attached to the offer. It can get even better than that though. How about getting your cake, and getting to eat it too, if you turn this offer into two years of the valuable Companion Pass? Let's look at if it is possible, and what the potential downsides are if you decide to chase it. Update 9/14/25: Reminder that these offers end 9/18/25 at 8AM ET, so the plan is possible.

Offer Details

In case you missed the announcement a month or so ago, here are the details for the new 100K Southwest credit card offer for the Plus, Premier and Priority personal cards:

• Earn 100,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first 5 months from account opening.
  • Plus card has a $99 annual fee
  • Premier card has a $149 annual fee
  • Priority card has a $229 annual fee

This article will be more focusing on the welcome offer, which is the same on each card, and will not be focusing on which card is best for you. If you want to compare the perks across all of the cards then be sure to check out our full review of all three cards. I will say that the cheaper Plus card is the best option for the majority of people.

The 100K Southwest Credit Card Offer Presents Options

Chase giving people 5 months to finish the spend for this offer creates some opportunity. Especially when you pair that up with the fact that this offer will be around until the middle of September. The two combined open up some possibilities, if you play everything just right.

When you earn a Southwest Companion Pass you get it for the rest of the current calendar year you earn it in, but also for the following calendar year. Because of that it is best to earn the Companion Pass as early in the year as possible. Doing so essentially gives you two years of BOGO flights.

In order to maximize this perk many people wait to grab a Southwest card until the end of the year. They then complete the required spending for the welcome offer after January 1st of the following year. The reason for that is because it matters when the bonus points post, not when you applied for the card. After the first of the year you could then grab a business or personal card (whichever you didn't grab at the end of the previous year) for the second welcome offer to get to the required 125,000 Rapid Rewards points for the Companion Pass.

Normally following this game plan would mean signing up for the first Southwest credit card in November. You then wait to finish the minimum spend required to earn the bonus until the new year. With this 100K Southwest credit card offer giving you 5 months to complete the $4,000 in spend you may not have have to wait until November. It does require waiting until at least mid August to apply for the card though. Then you would have until the middle of January to earn the bonus. With the offer sticking around into September, you can apply then, and have an even bigger buffer into 2026 to pull this off.

Word Of Warning

Let's take a minute to have some real talk here. Several of the people that are reading this right now will completely mess this up. Every single year we see people panic because they spent more than they thought they did and earn the card bonus before the calendar flips to the new year. If you do try to follow this game plan then be sure to leave a large buffer in spend before you put the card away for the year. Don't spend even close to the $4,000 required for the bonus. You should be spending like $3,000 instead. Also, be sure you have something lined up early next year to finish the required spend, whatever that amount should be. I would even secure message Chase after approval to confirm when the final day to complete your spend is. You don't want to miss it by taking too long on the other side either.

What Does The Timeline Look Like?

Let's do a rough sketch of what this would look like if you were trying to turn this 100K offer into a two(ish) year Companion Pass.

• Sign up for a personal 100K Southwest credit card offer in late August / early September
• You can complete some of the spend (or none at all) before the end of 2025
  • We are talking like $3,000 or less
• Wait until January 1st to complete the spend to push you over the $4,000 required
  • You could start this process as soon as your December statement closes, but in order to reduce errors you may want to wait until January 1st.
• Be sure you complete it before the end of January / early February
  • Remember to get the final date of your offer window from Chase via secure message
• Sign up for a Southwest business card to earn the remaining 25,000 or so Rapid Rewards you need to trigger the Companion Pass

If you play everything to perfection then you should have the Companion Pass for around 21 months or so. Time to dream about all of those BOGO flights! That is, unless Southwest changes things…

The Downside To This Plan

The downside to trying to turn this 100K Southwest credit card offer into a two year Companion Pass is that Southwest is a complete wild card right now. We don't know if the Companion Pass will even be around in 2026. Will they block credit card bonuses from counting towards the requirements? Could they raise the required earning to 200K etc. in 2026? We just don't know, especially with activist investors pulling all of the strings right now.

You have to go into this with your eyes open about the potential for that. The nice thing is that you still would get 100,000 Rapid Rewards points for your effort, so not all would be lost. It would be a bummer to go through all the hoops and not earn a Companion Pass though.

That is why I will say that if you have enough earnings to make this happen now, I would. Let's say you have 20,000 Rapid Rewards earnings already towards the Companion Pass in 2025. That could come from refer a friend sign ups, flights or some other offer you did during the year. If that was the case then I would grab the 100K Southwest credit card offer and hit the spend as quickly as possible. Earn that Companion Pass for the rest of 2025 and all of 2026. One in the hand is worth two in the bush, or so they say. I would rather have 16 or 17 months of Companion Pass versus the chance of having 21 months, but with the potential downside of 0 months.

This offer should get you to at least 104,000 of the 125,000 Rapid Rewards needed for the Companion Pass. That is when you include the 10,000 drop in requirement that cardholders get.

100K Southwest Credit Card Offer: ToP Thoughts

With the belief that these 100K Southwest credit card offers will be hanging around for a bit, plus the 5 month welcome offer spending period, it could be possible to super size the value you get here. That is if you stick to the game plan and don't run into any issues. The main issue would be the potential wild card of Southwest changing the Companion Pass set up. That is why I think I would go now if you already have a decent chunk of Rapid Rewards point earnings this year. If not, then I would probably play the long game and hope for the best. You would still get a 100K Rapid Rewards points consolation prize even if it doesn't fully materialize. Let me know what you're planning to do over in the ToP Facebook Group.