Final Call: My Favorite Southwest Card’s 90k Welcome Offer (Almost 70% to the Companion Pass!)

The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card has a limited-time welcome offer that wraps up July 2, and if you’ve been on the fence, this is the week to get off it.

(All information about the Chase cards below was collected independently by Eye of the Flyer. None of it was provided by or reviewed by Chase.)

Current Welcome Offer: Earn 90,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in the first three months from account opening. (Apply here.)

Those 90,000 points count toward Companion Pass qualification. The threshold is 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year — meaning this welcome offer alone gets you about two-thirds of the way there. If you’ve got any Southwest spending or earning points from flights on top of that, things start getting fun quickly.

I hold this card. I got it last year, earned the Companion Pass, and my wife has been flying with me on award bookings ever since — Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, a trip to see my nieces graduate. (We paid $5.60 in fees each way. That’s it.) The $229 annual fee has paid for itself several times over.

Why the Priority Card?

Three Southwest personal cards are running limited-time offers right now — the Plus ($99 annual fee, 80,000 points) and the Premier ($149, 85,000 points) are both solid options if the Priority’s fee doesn’t fit your budget. But the Priority is the one I’d point most people toward, and here’s why.

It’s the only personal card that lets you select a seat at the time of booking — even on a Basic economy ticket. You can choose a Preferred seat (front half of the cabin) for free at booking, and within 48 hours of departure, you can upgrade to an Extra Legroom seat at no charge, inventory permitting — for you and up to eight other passengers on the same reservation. That’s up to nine seats. On a Southwest 737, that’s almost three full rows of extra legroom, at no additional charge. On an airline where open seating was the rule for decades, that’s a genuinely meaningful benefit for anyone who cares where they sit.

The card also gives you 4X points on Southwest purchases, 2X on gas stations and restaurants, 7,500 bonus points each anniversary year, and the 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points boost every cardholder gets, regardless of which Southwest card they hold.

The Companion Pass Math

Southwest’s Companion Pass lets a designated person fly with you free of airline charges (taxes and fees from $5.60 each way apply) for the remainder of the calendar year plus all of the following year. You earn it by accumulating 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year — and the welcome offer bonus counts.

Ninety thousand points is 67% of 135,000. Add the 10,000 annual Companion Pass qualifying points boost every Southwest cardmember gets, and you’re at 100,000 before you’ve spent a dollar on the card. A few Southwest flights or everyday spending covers the rest. That’s not a hypothetical — that’s exactly how I got mine.

One Important Restriction

These offers are not available if you currently hold any Southwest Rapid Rewards personal or business credit card, or if you received a new cardmember bonus on any Southwest card within the last 24 months. Business cards are exempt from that restriction — meaning if you only hold a Southwest business card, you’re still eligible for the personal offer.

The Other Two Cards

If the Priority’s $229 annual fee is a stretch, the Premier and Plus are worth a look. Full details on all three — benefits, spending requirements, and current offers — are in our original post covering the full Southwest card lineup.

But if you fly Southwest two or three times a year and you’re going to pick one card, the Priority is the one.

Apply here on Chase’s site

Final Approach

The 90,000-point welcome offer on the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card expires July 2. That’s this Wednesday.

If you fly Southwest with any regularity — even a few times a year — this is the card I’d get. I have it. My wife has flown with me for free because of it. The seat selection benefits alone change the experience of flying Southwest, and the Companion Pass math on this welcome offer is genuinely hard to ignore: 90,000 points is 67% of the way to a benefit that lets someone fly with you free of airline charges for up to two years.

The offer ends Wednesday. If it’s on your list, now’s the time.

Apply here on Chase’s site

All information about the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card, Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card, and Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card was collected independently by Eye of the Flyer. None of it was provided by or reviewed by Chase.