Is Southwest Companion Pass worth it?

Start with the tickets you’d otherwise buy

Estimated savings = companion ticket prices − companion taxes and fees − extra costs to earn the pass.

Use trips you’d take anyway. An extra vacation may be a great use of the pass, but it doesn’t reduce what you were already planning to spend. Compare Southwest’s schedule and total price with the other flights you’d consider.

An example with three trips

Suppose your companion would otherwise buy three domestic round-trip tickets at $300 each, including taxes. You’d avoid $900 of ticket purchases, but still pay $33.60 in companion taxes if each round trip requires $11.20. If extra card fees and earning costs total $248, the estimated net value is $618.40.

Use your own fares, taxes and costs to estimate your savings. If you’d keep a card anyway for other benefits, count only the part of its fee you’re paying to earn the pass. Don’t subtract the same fee twice.

Calculate your estimated value

Costs people leave out

• Annual fees across all cards opened for the strategy.
• Interest, payment-processing charges or account fees.
• Higher hotel or flight prices paid to earn qualifying points.
• Rewards you give up by moving purchases from another card.
• Additional baggage or seat charges that apply to the chosen trip.
• The time and logistics of meeting deadlines and managing reservations.

Ordinary purchases you already needed aren’t automatically an extra cost of the pass. Unnecessary purchases made only to trigger a bonus are.

Look at your next few trips

If you and your partner regularly fly Southwest together, you may get plenty of use from the pass without changing companions. The same goes for a parent who often travels with a child.

It’s a harder sell if Southwest has few useful flights from your airport, you usually travel alone, or you often fly with different people. Look at where you’ll go, who’ll come with you and what those flights cost before applying for cards.