Southwest Rapid Rewards: Everything You Need to Know (2024)

The airline’s dedication to nonconformity spills over to its loyalty rewards program, too. As competing programs start to blend together, Rapid Rewards stands out even more with its unique tiers, rewards, and most notably, the Companion Pass “super perk” you unlock after taking 100 flights or earning 135,000 Rapid Rewards points.

But “different” doesn’t always mean “superior.” There are several ways in which Rapid Rewards falls short of its more orthodox contemporaries, most notably in terms of flexibility and flight options.

So let’s cover everything you need to know about Southwest Rapid Rewards.

What is/are Rapid Rewards?

Southwest Rapid Rewards is the airline’s loyalty rewards program. It’s free to join, and as soon as you do, you’ll start earning points on every booking made directly with Southwest.

To our surprise, Southwest doesn’t have a fun, playful name for its points. Just “points.” Once you’ve amassed enough of them, you can redeem your vanilla-sounding points for Southwest flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises and more.

Your points will also help you reach high status. Rapid Rewards has two status tiers–A-List and A-List Preferred–and a final “super perk” that you’ll unlock at 100 flight segments/135,000 points.

Although Rapid Rewards is endearingly simple and appropriately quirky, the program does come with some serious drawbacks. So let’s break it all down, starting with the overarching pros and cons.

Rapid Rewards: Pros and cons in 2024

Rapid Rewards Points Explained

Southwest Rapid Rewards has two types of points to track:

• Rapid Rewards points are the foundational currency of the program. You’ll earn them by booking flights, using your Southwest-branded credit card and through the various other methods listed below, and you can redeem them for airfare, gift cards and more.
• Rapid Rewards tier-qualifying points (TQP) are Rapid Rewards points that actually count towards your next status level. TQP are any Rapid Rewards points that weren’t:
  • Purchased, transferred or gifted
  • Earned from program or credit card enrollment
  • Earned from a tier bonus (e.g. 25% at A-List preferred)
  • Earned from reward travel
  • And more exceptions listed here.

Now onto the obvious question: how can you maximize your Rapid Rewards points?

How to earn Rapid Rewards points

Southwest offers four primary ways to generate Rapid Rewards points:

• Booking Southwest flights
• Using a Southwest-branded credit card (see our top picks)
• Staying at one of Southwest’s six hotel partners, including:
  • Southwest Hotels
  • Best Western
  • Choice Hotels
  • World of Hyatt
  • Marriott Bonvoy
  • MGM Rewards
• Booking a rental car with one of Southwest’s eight rental car partners, including:
  • Alamo
  • Avis
  • Budget
  • Dollar
  • Hertz
  • National
  • Payless
  • Thrifty

You can also generate a trickle of points by shopping with Southwest’s retail partners, taking surveys and in some states, by simply paying your NRG electric bill.

But for the most part, you’ll probably be generating the bulk of your points through flights, hotels and rental cars. Before making plans, be sure to check out Southwest’s current partner promos, too, for an easy points-booster.

As for earnings rate, when you book a flight with Southwest, the amount of points you earn will depend on two things:

• Your fare type
  • Wanna Get Away: 6X
  • Anytime: 10X
  • Business Select: 12X
• Your current Southwest Rapid Rewards tier
  • A-List: 25% multiplier
  • A-List Preferred: 100% multiplier

So if you’re a non-A-Lister booking a Wanna Get Away ticket with a base fare of $100, you’ll earn 600 Rapid Rewards points. But if you book the same ticket at the Anytime fare level as an A-Lister, you’ll earn $100 * 10X + 25% = 1,250 points.

If that’s too much math, we get it–thankfully, Southwest does a great job at showing you how many points you can earn with a specific ticket well before you book it:

That’s not bad, but if you want to increase the “velocity” of your Rapid Rewards even further, you might also consider applying for a Southwest credit card. We’re fans of the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card, since it offers 85,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, 3X points on Southwest® purchases, 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points per year and more. There’s a $149 annual fee attached to the card, but it includes a $75 Southwest® annual travel credit each year, 7,500 anniversary points each year and four Upgraded Boardings per year to help compensate.

How to redeem Rapid Rewards points

Southwest allows you to redeem your hard-earned points for the following:

• Flights on Southwest
• Hotels
• Rental cars
• Cruises
• Gift cards to various retail partners (e.g. Zappos, Bass Pro Shops)
• “Activities” (e.g. CMA Awards tickets)
• TSA PreCheck application fees
• Travel insurance
• And more

But per usual, the exchange rate massively favors airfare over anything else. The consensus pins the value of a single Rapid Rewards point to around 1.4 cents when redeemed for flights, meaning a $100 base fare may only cost you around 7,200 points to book. The alternative is to spend 9,400 points on a $50 Cracker Barrel gift card–and as much as we love Chicken and Dumplings, that just doesn’t make any sense.

So despite the wide array of redemption options, your best option is to just save your points for more Southwest flights.

Earning and redeeming with Rapid Rewards partners

This is the part where we’d normally talk about how you can earn extra Southwest points by flying with OneWorld, Star Alliance or another partner network. But one of Southwest’s many, many quirks is that it doesn’t actually have any partner airlines–so the only way to earn miles in the sky is on a Southwest flight.

Southwest does mention “international flights operated by other airlines” as a possible redemption option via the “more rewards” program but the redemption rates are much lower than what you can expect when redeeming for a Southwest flight.

The fact that you can only earn Southwest points and status on Southwest flights is objectively a big drawback to the program. For a point of comparison, when you fly with one of United’s 33 partner airlines, you’ll be earning both miles and status through United’s loyalty program, MileagePlus.

But Southwest wants you to prove your loyalty to them and them alone. At a high level, we can’t really say that we blame them. Either way, let’s see what the airline has to offer you in return for your dedication.

Rapid Rewards Status Explained

As expected for a quirky airline, Southwest does “status” a little differently.

The first two tiers are pretty straightforward. At 20 flight segments or 35,000 TQP you’ll reach the A-List tier, which unlocks priority boarding, a 25% earning bonus, same-day change/standby and priority lane/express lane check-in.

Once you hit 40 segments or 70,000 TQP you’ll reach A-List Preferred, which unlocks free inflight internet, a dedicated support phone line, 100% earnings bonus and up to two complimentary premium drinks (on flights 176 miles or longer).

Here’s where things get funky: once you reach 100 segments or 135,000 TQP, there’s no “diamond”-equivalent status waiting for you with lounge passes and back massages. Instead, you’ll unlock a Companion Pass, which allows you to designate a “companion” who flies with you for free–minus taxes and fees–for the rest of the current year and the following year. You can only change your companion up to three times in a calendar year, so be sure to choose wisely!

Is it worth the effort to attain Rapid Rewards status?

If you and your friend/wife/colleague/bodyguard are already flying Southwest several times a month, it’s absolutely worth the effort to try to unlock that Companion Pass for next year.

Consider the following math: if you plan to make 25 round trips together next year, and each ticket has a base fare of $250, having a Companion Pass would save you $6,250 in airfare. That makes the Companion Pass one of the most valuable airline status perks we’ve ever encountered.

If you plan to fly Southwest solo/less frequently, it’s probably still worth gunning for the A-List tier since it unlocks so many convenience-related perks like priority boarding and same-day change/standby. Plus, the 25% earnings bonus can be a big money-saver, too.

How Rapid Rewards compares to others

As mentioned above, the biggest drawback to Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program is its lack of partner airlines. United MileagePlus has 33, Delta SkyMiles has 25, Southwest has bagel. Nada. Zilch.

So even if you have 10,000,000 Rapid Rewards points, they won’t do you much good if you have to fly somewhere Southwest doesn’t reach, including Wyoming, the Dakotas or anywhere outside of the Western Hemisphere.

The other comparative drawback to Rapid Rewards is the lengthy trek to its first status tier. You’ll need 20 flight segments or 35,000 TQP to reach A-List, whereas United and Alaska will grace you with silver-equivalent status in as few as 12 segments/20,000 points, respectively.

All that being said, you could make a reasonable argument that Rapid Rewards isn’t in competition with those programs to begin with– it’s a niche program for Southwest fans only that’s both unique and rewarding in its own way.

Still, a little competitive analysis goes to show that Southwest isn’t being stingy compared to other airlines. Quite the contrary, Rapid Rewards exudes the best qualities of the airline itself: simple, great value and the perfect amount of quirkiness.

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