Southwest Airlines is pushing hard to boost its bookings in the next few months, with a major Rapid Rewards promotion launch. The carrier is offering bonus points towards elite status across multiple pathways, including flights, credit card spend, and other partners.
We’re bringing back this popular promotion to give our Rapid Rewards Members an extra boost to reach our coveted A-List and A-List Preferred tier status faster, so they can take advantage of all the benefits that our Rapid Rewards program has to offer… – Jonathan Clarkson, Vice President & Chief Product Officer at Southwest Airlines
Bonus points for flying
Passengers will earn double points for all flights until the end of November; bookings made through business travel channels get triple credit. Additionally, award trips will earn double segment credit, useful for passengers who qualify by segments flown rather than dollars spent.
Credit Cards for Tier Points
Some co-branded credit card holders (Priority, Premier, Business) already earn 1,500 tier points for every $5,000 spent on their cards. For the next three months, however, everyone with a Southwest card will earn an additional 2,000 points for each $5,000 spent.
Earning with partners
New this year to the promotion, Southwest will also offer bonus tier points for earnings through some partners. These include hotels and rental cars booked through Southwest’s website. They also include Rapid Rewards Shopping, Rapid Rewards Dining, Laithwaites, 1-800-Flowers, NRG including Reliant and Xoom, Energy Plus, Harry and David, and Rewards for Opinions.
Members can earn up to 5,000 bonus tier points through this avenue.
Or just Companion Pass
Separately, Southwest is also running a three-day promotion for a limited-duration companion pass. Two flights (or one round trip) purchased this week and flown before 20 November is enough to earn that top-tier benefit for three months at the beginning of 2025.
More lucrative than ever, but at what cost?
Southwest ran a similar promotion in 2023, also lasting three months and also offering big bonuses for travel or credit card spend. That one, however, offered slightly fewer bonus points on the credit card spend (1,500 v 2,000 per $5,000 spend) and did not include the partner earning options. A similar Companion Pass promo also ran in 2023.
Airline loyalty programs are cash cows, especially in the US market with strong credit card issuers and other third-party partners in play. Getting members into the program is valuable to the airline because it works as a funnel towards the credit card acquisition. But that’s not what Southwest is pursuing with this promotion.
The past decade has seen many airlines becoming more nimble with their programs, particularly around promotions and targeting. Occasional offers to the entire customer base still occur, but generally offers are more focused, either with performance thresholds to secure a bonus or a limited population selected for an offer. Southwest chose neither of those options here.
Given Southwest’s lackluster financial performance the past couple years relative to its peers, it is not hard to see this as an effort to juice the loyalty program membership levels. After all, having more elites usually translates to more share of wallet. But if they give the benefits away to too many people too cheap, that could backfire.
Especially with Elliott Management pushing a new Board of Directors and other changes at the company.
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