Juggling Southwest Rapid Rewards Points and Booking Flights – How Do I Best Do This?

[mmbrad02]

So last year we flew to Orlando for a conference for my DH. (We being, DH, myself, and our DD8). DH’s employeer paid for his ticket, and DD and I flew on points from a newly opened Southwest Visa. Worked beautifully, no issues.

This year, we have booked a Disney cruise for October. Today I opened a Southwest Visa in DH’s name (he was not on mine last year) and after we make our $4k in charges, he will have 30k points and a free companion pass for the rest of 2019. I have 22,418 points left on my own Southwest Visa. The goal? Get us from Kentucky to Orlando as cheap as possible in October!

That said, I would like to be listed as DH’s Companion pass person. Honestly we don’t anticipate anymore flights in 2019, but you never know when the opportunity will present itself. (And yes I debated waiting till this promo ended and waiting for a 60k offer but I really want to get our required spending out of the way so we can start looking at flights as soon as they release). It’s more likely he and I would travel alone than He and DD (though most likely it would be all 3 of us regardless so it may be a non issue). I read that you can change your Companion Pass 3 times a year. Has anyone done this and is it easy to do? Does anyone know if receiving your companion pass with the current offer would have any effect on being able to change your pass 3 times?

Or if I list myself as DH’s companion, can I purchase DD’s ticket with my rewards? Or does that leave her showing as traveling without an adult, and will that cause issues? Last time we flew on partial points, they combined us somehow together when we checked our luggage to reflect that we were traveling together.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I have changed my companion and all it takes is a phone call.
Yes you can purchase any ticket with anyone’s reward points.
If she is under 12 (?i think) it will ask you to link the adult traveling with her’s confirmation number when you book her flight.

 

[GusGus16]

The only thing that would limit you changing your companion, is your Oct flights would need to be completed (with you as the companion) or canceled prior to any other companion airfare being booked for someone else. If you are simply booking another flight with you as a companion it is a non-issue.

 

[AlohaNow]

Or if I list myself as DH’s companion, can I purchase DD’s ticket with my rewards? Or does that leave her showing as traveling without an adult, and will that cause issues?

This will not be a problem. Just book the adults first and then you will get a pop up question of is the minor traveling with an adult. You may need to link the confirmation code at that point, or you just say Yes. Even though I've done it a bunch of times, I cannot remember how it currently works. You should see the spreadsheet I have for booking our SW flights! We do stuff like this all the time, and we just keep flying for free on SW.

I too am working toward the minimum spend on the SW card offer! We have never had CP before and will be so excited to get it! I know that October dates are set to be released mid-March, but I will not have the CP in hand yet. If I have to do a little manufactured spending in my second billing period with them, I sure will do that so that we can book our flights earlier. The non-stops that we want are limited. I was really surprised to learn that you can change your 'companion' three times during the year. SW just makes everything so easy for us, don't they?