Search

[chittlins]

So I've always dreamed of getting enough points in a year to pull one. Never did I think of pulling off two passes for nearly two years. This sounds like bragging but it's also info for those that may be a position to pull it off.

We had decided to stay put in our home for 15 years instead of building a new one. So there were renovations to be done, the kitchen alo.alone with the appliances ,flooring and cabin ates was going to be 30,000 grand plus there a few other things to buy. I have been reading the points guy for a while and eventually I decided to start acting on his advice.

Last fall we each got Starwood and Marriott Reward cards. Bought items to meet the spend requirements to get the bonus during black friday sales. Put it in the garage. The Points Guy said these would transfer to Southwest and count toward the Companion Pass. I had enough points on Southwest that if I transfered over my wife's bonus points to my account and then transfer them to Southwest I'd get that pass for this year. Then  read to wait till the beginning of the new year to do it because if you achieve 110,000 points quickly in the new year, the pass would be the for all of 2017 AND 2018. So, even though my existing points wouldn't count after the new year for the pass, I decided to game the system and each of us get a Southwest Card and use it for the remaining purchases for the remodel to meet the bonus requirements.  Then as we waited till after the 1st to get the southwest cards, Southwest ended the hotel card transfer deal for companion passes (our best western and choice points we already had would transfer as well before the first) I got pi**ed . Then re got a reprieve and they extended the deadline to March 31st. That was going to leave us both a little short but now Southwest offers huge sums of reward points for certain hotel when you book through them. So we booked our DC trip rooms via them, 21,000 points for 4 nights in DC  on my card alone. We applied for the southwest Business cards and got them too and we are finishing up the reno on those, and we each are getting 50,000 more points. So by the end of March we both have a Southwest Companion Pass, one each for out kids, plus an insane amount of point between us all for what we had already budgeted our reno  project for. We are going to flying on Southwest dime for quite some time.


While all of that was going on, we had also each got a Chase Sapphire Reserve card with 100,000 bonus points but we couldn'd use those toward the Companion Pass from the get go.

Needless to say, we are delaying our Euro trip to 2019 to enjoy flying all over the place I the states on Southwest the next two years. We'll put lots of hotels and stuff on the Sapphire card at 3x points and use those and Southwest to fly to and from Europe for free in 2019, usepoints earned on that trip to cover airfare to Asia either in 2020 or 2021 and it'll carry forward after that.


The easiest way for someone to do this is if they don't have a Southwest Card and needs something or some things the 5,000 dollar range, apply for both Southwest cards, hit the min spends to get the bonus points. And then book a hotel or two via Southwest for a summer vacation, pay the cards off and  boom you have a companion pass where someone flies for free with you for two years just for buying stuff you were going to buy. The sooner you do it after Jan 1st the longer the pass is good for. You can nearly have one for two years. The points you got (over 110,000)will cover your tickets. At worst it's buy one get one free and your getting points at 3x if your using the southwest card for doing so.