This is a really easy credit card bonus to get with just a $1,000 minimum spend: Chase Southwest Visa with $1,000 Minimum Spend within 3 months bonus offer.
Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards PLUS Credit Card bonus:
- Earn 50,000 bonus points/$650 value, when you spend $1,000 within 3 months on the Chase Southwest Visa.
- Value of 50,000 bonus points: $650. You can fly Southwest on most US flights to major cities (we go from Phoenix to Nashville regularly), for around 11,000-13,000 points per leg (22,000-26,000 points round trip). This means that your 50,000 bonus points, when you include the $1,000 minimum spend to equal a minimum of 60,000 points earned, gives you a minimum of 51,000 Rapid Rewards points, which is a dollar value of $780 if Southwest Rapid Rewards points are valued at 1.3 cents each.
At the moment, you’ll only get the same 50,000 bonus points whether you choose the $69 ANNUAL FEE Southwest PLUS credit card, or the $99 Premier, or the $149 Priority card. We have the Priority card because it actually saves us MORE money than the other Southwest credit cards with lower annual fees, because of the additional savings we get with the Southwest PRIORITY card.
The additional benefits of the Southwest PREMIER credit card (not recommended; if you are choosing between Southwest PLUS, PREMIER, or PRIORITY credit cards,
- choose PLUS if you fly less than two legs per year or if you just want to get your credit card bonus in free gift cards (an option to redeem your Rapid Rewards points), or
- choose PRIORITY if you fly more than two legs per year and you want to get extra perks points for flights;
- do NOT choose Premier; it offers no value and it seems to be a money maker for Southwest, but not a value for consumers.
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The additional benefits of the Southwest PRIORITY credit card (this is the one I have):
- 7,500 bonus points($97.50 value) on your credit card anniversary with the Southwest PRIORITY card. That’s about 2/3 of a flight, or a $97.50 value if Southwest Rapid Rewards are worth $0.013 each. (I guess it could be about 1.5 flights if you take advantage of Southwest’s regular $59 sales—but who wants to fly in to Chicago or Albuquerque?! Most of the normal cities we fly into from Phoenix cost about $170, or 11,000-13,000 points, per leg.)
- Plus, 4 upgraded boardings per year. This seems to be about a $20 value up to several hundred dollars in value (for some reason, the upgrade from Wanna Get Away Plus to Business Select is currently $567!), but let’s be reasonable, so count this benefit up to an $80 value per year if you fly 4 legs per year.
- Note: Do NOT book a higher boarding level that you want expecting the difference to be credited. The way to take advantage of the upgrade feature is when you check in to your flight within 24 hours or boarding. If, at that point, Southwest offers you upgraded boarding, and you accept that, you will get the credit.
- 10,000 Companion Pass points bonus each year (this is a small benefit, as you need 135,000 Rapid Rewards points to earn Companion Pass without an extra bonus program).
- 25% cashback on inflight purchases (this is basically alcoholic drinks).
- Unlimited tier qualifying points (TQPs): Earn 1,500 TQPs toward A-list status for every $5,000 you spend– there is no limit on the amount of TQPs you can earn.
- THE MAIN BENEFIT TO SOUTHWEST PRIORITY CARD IS THAT YOU WILL INSTANTLY RECEIVE YOUR $75 FLIGHT CREDIT WHEN YOU CHARGE $75 paying for a Southwest flight. This takes the $149 Southwest PRIORITY annual fee down to $74, which is only $5 more than the Southwest PLUS annual fee of $69, but you get the additional benefits.
- I have the Southwest PRIORITY credit card, with Companion Pass.
What I did to maximize my Southwest PRIORITY credit card ASAP:
- Changed all of our family’s credit card charges to Southwest PRIORITY card to meet the minimum spending requirement as soon as possible. While we lost a few dollars by using the Southwest card instead of other credit cards that have a higher cashback bonus for gas, groceries, etc., we used the Southwest PRIORITY card exclusively until we hit the minimum spend, so we could unlock the maximum value of this card as soon as possible.
- If you look at the grid on this page of the Southwest Visa bonus offer, you can see that the best feature of the PRIORITY card versus the PREMIER card is the $75 cashback credit for Southwest purchases. I received my credit within two days of using my PRIORITY card for a Southwest flight.
- I received my bonus points for hitting the minimum spending threshold within two days after the charge period that followed after I met the minimum spend. Chase Southwest Visa closed my first pay period around 5 days after I received my card, and after that, after the second pay period closed, and I had hit my minimum spend, I received my bonus points. This is super annoying that it takes upwards of 45 days for you to receive your bonus points, in case you come upon this offer just a couple months before your vacation.
- Unfortunately, Chase refuses to send a card overnight like Amex and other credit card companies do, nor will Chase give you your credit card number, nor will Chase allow you to add your new credit card to a digital wallet. So your minimum spending timeframe is actually about 12-14 days LESS than stated, since you can’t start charging until you receive your physical card.
- Chase Southwest Visa bonus offer link here.
