You don’t have to be a travel blogger to travel for free!
When I first heard about the Companion Pass I went straight to thinking it’d be way too hard to get… I’d probably need to travel a million miles before I could qualify and spend $$$. Boy was I wrong. Back in February we decided to go for it and applied for the Southwest Rapid Rewards card. It’s now October, and I’ve booked three flights for Merik and I and have only spent $200.
I’ll say that again.
$200. We’re going to California, New York City and Costa Rica for $200.
It’s been BLOWING MY MIND the amount of traveling we can do at such a small expense. In our time together we’ve travelled to a lot of different states to visit friends and that’s why Southwest is perfect for us. I know, I know, it’s not Delta, I can’t fly to London with Southwest, but heck, I can fly to NY and hop over to London for A LOT cheaper. So if you’re like us and do a lot of inner-state traveling keep on reading. I’m going to share the step-by-step process on how we hit 110,000 reward miles in less than a year.
Step One: Apply for the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card
Oh no! She said credit card! Why are people so against credit cards? I mean, I guess I get it if you have zero self control. I learned that hard way that it is, in fact, not free money. Luckily I only had a $500 limit at the time so that damage wasn’t too extensive. The Southwest Plus credit card is pretty simple. It’s no Chase Sapphire or Capital One Venture, but that’s not the point. When you apply and receive the Southwest credit card you only need to spend $1000 in the first three months to get the bonus of 40,000 miles. If you think about it, that’s about $333.33 a month you need to spend on you card. Chump change. Fill your tank, grocery shop, etc., but DON’T FORGET TO PAY IT OFF. Not free money, people. You pay a $69 annual fee up front and receive 2 points per $1 spent on travel and 1 point for the rest. Doesn’t seem like much, but just bare with me. These next steps are where you work the system a little bit.
Step Two: Apply for the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premiere Credit Card
This will only work if you’re not a maniac and have 1375 credit cards and apply to 10 new ones a month. Chase is cracking down on people who are “at risk” so you won’t qualify for both cards if you’ve recently opened other accounts. This card has a $99 annual fee with a similar point system but you get 6,000 miles with your year mark instead of 3,000. It also has the similar bonus of spending $1000 in the first three months to receive the 40,000 bonus miles. When it’s all said and done and you’ve qualified for both of the card bonuses you should be sitting at about 82,000 miles. Now remember, we need 110,000 to qualify for the companion pass, so how are we going to bridge that gap without spending $20,000 dollars?
Step Three: Treat yourself to a little weekend away
Easy, right? Merik and I rarely use hotels (thx to all our friends couches and my parents condos} so this was a little scary for me. Southwest has an awesome program that incentives Rapid Rewards members to book hotels and rental cars through their portal. By doing so, you can receive up to 10,000 miles per night at qualifying hotels. This is what really saved the day for us. Just to back up a little bit, when I initially applied for both of these credit cards I accidentally clicked on a different promo for the Premiere card. By doing so, I received a $200 voucher and 10,000 miles instead of the 40,000. This put a BIG DAMPER on my companion pass dreams. We were halfway through the year sitting at about 60,000 miles and I had no idea how I was going to double that.
IN COMES HOTELS.
After searching for some hotels that are relatively close to us (I didn’t want to spend too much money to get to these bonus-filled hotels) I found one in Park City, UT over our anniversary weekend that was only $189 a night for 12,000 points. Booked that sucker immediately. Yes, I could’ve found cheaper hotels, but that’s not going to get me the miles I need to qualify. You just have to ask yourself the question, “Is $189 right now worth a year (and some) of free flights?”. That answer should be yes! We were slowly climbing to our goal of 110,000 miles, but it was taking longer than anticipated.
This won’t be a problem if you are approved for both cards and don’t make the idiotic mistake of choosing the voucher over the miles. *insert face palm emoji*
Next, we booked two nights in Vegas for a room for four. It’s an excellent idea to book a room for more people because 1. more miles and 2. party people that will pay for part of the room !! Unfortunately, we couldn’t find party people who could come with us but we still walked away from Vegas with 25,000 miles and $75 less from those dang roulette tables.
That weekend away put our lovely mileage wallet at 112,000.
STEP FOUR: REAP THOSE REWARDS!
I estimate that we spent about $1100 + the annual fee of each card to qualify for a year and a few months of a free flights. Do the math. Everything else was just normal spending, we just used the cards as our debit card and would pay it off each month. $1100 is worth the money saved on all the traveling we’re doing the upcoming year.
Although we didn’t qualify as quickly as we wanted to (voucher hiccup), we can still use the companion pass to the end of 2019. You also have an arsenal of 110,000+ miles in your belt to use to book flights. We’ve already booked a weekend to Big Sur, CA (cost me about $20), a Thanksgiving trip to NYC to visit friends ($11) and a birthday trip to Costa Rica in February ($86) and that’s just the beginning!
I know I threw a lot of numbers out their, and maybe some very fiscally responsible person is shaking their head at me for doing this, but we’re young and traveling is a priority for us. If it is for you, I HIGHLY encourage working towards the Companion Pass. You won’t regret it.
Happy travels! xx