Timing Your Spend
We wrote earlier about the 120,000 points signup bonus on both Chase Southwest business credit cards. There is a $15,000 spend requirement. To get the Southwest Companion Pass requires 135,000 points, and so anyone who does this bonus can end up with the Companion Pass. The key here is the timing, since the signup bonus is broken down in two components:
- Earn 80,000 points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from your account opening.
- Plus, earn an additional 40,000 points after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 9 months.
Getting The Pass In 2024-2025
Someone who hits the $15,000 threshold in 2025 will not end up with any Companion Pass since the 135,000 points have to all be earned in one calendar year.
And so, seemingly, the plan would be to finish both tiers of the entire spend requirement before your December 2024 statement closes. This way, you’ll get the full 135,000 points during 2024. You’ll then get the Companion Pass for the rest of 2024 and the entire 2025.
Getting The Pass For 2025-2026
Yet some people might take an entirely different route and deliberately delay getting the pass until 2025. The key here is the fact that these signup bonuses are slated to end on 9/16/24.
A potential plan would be to deliberately push off applying for this card until September. Then change your statement to close on December 1st. And you’ll deliberately delay meeting any signup bonus spend requirements until after your December statement closed. (Or you can meet most of it, but leave a bit of spend off. This route might leave you a few thousand points short, but it’ll make the spend easier.)
This way, all of the spend and signup bonus points will come through on the January 2025 statement. Then you’ll meet the second tier spend requirement during December or any of the coming months. With this plan, it’s possible to squeeze nearly two years of Companion Pass (2025 and 2026) from this deal instead of just one-and-change.
It’s possible to change your card statement date to close the 1st of each month. That way, any points earned in December won’t post to your Southwest account until January 1, 2024. Readers suggest that changing the Due Date to the 26th of the month should result in the statement closing on the first of each month. Note that you might not be able to change your due date more than once-per-180-days, so we have to get it right the first time.
You can read this article we wrote last year and the comments there for more discussion on the timing.
Chuck
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