Southwest Cardholder Promo Codes
If you have a Southwest Airlines card, don't overlook your annual promo codes. On select co-branded cards, Southwest issues yearly promotional discounts, an under-the-radar benefit that can bring some sneakily stellar redemption values. The promos are advertised as being worth 10%-20% off your flights, depending on which card you hold. But in practice, they can be worth even more when booking with Rapid Rewards points. Let's take a look at how to find—and apply—your Southwest cardholder promo codes.
Who Gets Southwest Cardholder Promo Codes?
Credit cardholders can expect to find them deposited in their Rapid Rewards account within 15 days of their card account anniversary. Debit cardholders receive them every January (by Jan. 31, specifically). The promo codes are valid for one year after issuance. The expiration dates are marked on each code. Promo codes are issued on the following cards:
| Southwest Card | Discount |
| Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card | 15% promo code |
| Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card | 10% promo code |
| Southwest® Premier Business Credit Card | 15% promo code |
| Southwest Rapid Rewards Debit Card | 20% promo code |
Terms of the Promo Codes
Here are the notable terms and conditions of the Southwest cardholder promo codes:
- Promo codes exclude Basic fares. They can only be applied to Choice fares and above.
- Your account anniversary year is defined as “the year beginning with your account open date through the first statement after the anniversary of your account open date, and each 12 billing cycles after that.”
- Promo codes are applied to the base fares of a new (not previously booked) flight booked directly through Southwest. The codes don't apply toward taxes and fees. Fares are subject to change until ticketed.
- Codes can't be combined with other special offers.
- Codes can't be used for gift card purchases, group travel, Southwest Vacations, Getaways by Southwest, fares booked via swabiz.com, Southwest Partner Services API or through Global Distribution Systems. Special fares, such as military and government fares, are also ineligible.
- Credit card account must be open and in good standing at time of booking.
How to Apply the Promo Codes
First, check which Southwest cardholder promo codes are currently active in your Rapid Rewards account. Login on the app or website. Click on My Account, and scroll to the Promo Codes box. You'll find any available promos you have, each with their own unique code and expiration date. Your code will show in the box I've highlighted in red here:
Return to the home page to search for your flight. Apply the discount code directly on the search page. That way, your results will populate with both the original and discounted prices. I like to also use the Low Fare Calendar to hunt for the cheapest flights.
Southwest doesn't clearly spell out out all the rules of usage in the terms and conditions, but current DPs indicate that:
- The expiration dates represent book-by dates, not travel-by dates.
- The codes are one-time use. This means:
- If you cancel your discounted flight(s), you won't get the used code redeposited into your account.
- However, if you change your itinerary, the discount code will be reapplied to the updated fares.
How to Get the Best Value
There are a few other quirks to the Southwest cardholder promo codes that make them more valuable in certain instances. We'll outline a few tips and examples below.
Use on award flights rather than cash or credit fares.
While the 10% and 15% credit card discounts are fairly accurate when applied to cash fares, their values trend even higher on award fares. Take this example flight to Hawaii. To travel from MSY to HNL, my 15% discount code is actually providing closer to 30% off. It's possible this is related to certain taxes and fees that aren't applicable to award flights. However, as Frequent Miler flagged, this phenomenon does not seem to occur with the debit card discount. It's hard to say if this is a glitch or not. But for the time being, you can get significantly better value using your credit card codes on award flights.
Apply to round trip fares.
Normally, I prefer to book my flights one way for the added flexibility. But since these discount codes can be applied to roundtrip bookings, you should be able to get around twice the value (depending on fare pricing). Once I changed the above MSY to HNL flight to a roundtrip, it doubled my points discount.
Book for your entire family on one itinerary.
The promo code will apply to the entire itinerary at booking. So if you want to travel with family and friends, book everyone together. When I added a second passenger to my Hawaii flight, the discount extended to both passengers, both ways.
For comparison, here's the two-person roundtrip cash booking with the promo code applied. The discount here comes to about 15%, versus the about 30% discount above on the points booking.
Get even better values with Companion Pass.
And of course, if you have locked in the Companion Pass perk and can tack on your companion, you'll get twice the value for your first ticket, too. The 29,000-point roundtrip fare to Hawaii above would effectively cost 14,500 points per person. Not bad for a roundtrip to Hawaii.
Other targeted offers may appear in your account.
While the above cardholders should receive annual anniversary or calendar-year codes, it's possible more promotions will land in your inbox too. We've seen DPs of offers appearing in accounts with slightly different terms (ie, for award flights only, eligible on basic fares, differing expiration dates, etc.) Your mileage may vary.
Southwest Cardholder Promo Codes: ToP Thoughts
Rapid Rewards haven't stretched quite as far in recent years as they once did, in the aftermath of all the program's changes. But if you have a stash of Southwest points and can maximize these promos, you might find some pretty solid cpp values. The codes have no blackout dates or locations, which means redemptions can be particularly useful for travel around holidays, last-minute trips and to Southwest's pricier destinations like Hawaii. If you have the Companion Pass, you can do even better. Have you found any of the Southwest cardholder promo codes in your account? How have you used them? Come and tell us your thoughts in the ToP Facebook group.
