Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card Review (2024.11 Update: 40k+$400 Offer)

Non-affiliate disclosure: all information about the this card have been collected independently by US Credit Card Guide and has not been reviewed by the issuer.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card Review

2024.11 Update: The new offer is 40k+$400. Offer ends on 2024.10.09. This one is not as good as the previous 85k offer.

2024.10 Update: The higher offer is expired. Currently there’s only a 50k offer.

2024.9 Update: The 85k offer comes back. Offer ends on 2024.10.09.

Application Link

Benefits

  1. 40k+$400 offer: earn 40,000 Southwest Miles and $400 statement credit after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 4 months. The recent best offer is 85k.
  2. We value Southwest Miles at 1.3 cents/point (Airline Miles Value), so the 85k highest offer is worth about $1,105. See A Beginner’s Guide to Southwest Miles for details about Southwest Miles.
  3. Earn 3x miles per dollar spent on Southwest Airlines. Earn 2x miles per dollar on local transit and commuting (including rideshare), Internet, cable, phone services, and select streaming, and Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partner. Earn 1x mile per dollar spent on all other purchases.
  4. After each year anniversary and pay the annual fee, you will be credited 6k Southwest miles.
  5. 2 EarlyBird Check-In per year.
  6. 25% back on in-flight purchases.
  7. Earn 1,500 TQPs (tier qualifying points, useful towards A-List status, but not useful towards companion pass) for every $10,000 spent.
  8. If you earn 125k Southwest miles in a year, you get the Southwest companion pass certificate which is valid until the end of next calendar year!
  9. No foreign transaction fee.
  10. Refer a friend (targeted): You can earn 5,000 bonus Southwest miles for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 10 approved referrals (50,000 Southwest miles) per calendar year.

Disadvantage

  1. Annual fee $99, not waived first year.
  2. Southwest doesn』t have airlines partners, so the miles can only be redeemed for Southwest Airlines itself. Southwest can only fly to the US and some central America and Caribbean countries, no further international routes.

Recommended Application Time

  1. [5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application on this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
  2. This product is available to you if you do not have any Southwest personal credit card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for any Southwest personal credit card in the past 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
  3. Don』t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, or it』s highly likely that you will get rejected.
  4. We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history for more than a year.

Summary

The 75k highest sign-up bonus is good. If you apply for a personal Southwest card and a business Southwest card, both when have the highest sign-up bonus, then you will earn more than 125k Southwest miles in total, which is more than enough to get you a Companion Pass (Note that you can’t get two personal Southwest cards at the same time now). The best timing to get it is the beginning of a calendar year, because it will be valid until the end of next calendar year!

Now you can only choose one Chase Southwest personal card from the three. If you don’t fly Southwest frequently, and you just want the sign-up bonus, then the Chase Southwest Plus card with the lowest annual fee is the most suitable for you. If you fly Southwest frequently, then the Chase Southwest Priority with more benefits is better.

Related Credit Cards

 Chase Southwest PlusChase Southwest PremierChase Southwest PriorityChase Southwest Premier BusinessChase Southwest Performance Business
Annual Fee$69$99$149$99$199
Various Creditnonenone$75 Southwest credit; Four Upgraded BoardingsnoneFour Upgraded Boardings; Inflight WiFi; Global Entry
Annual Miles3,0006,0007,5006,0009,000
Best Sign-up Bonus75k75k75k60k80k

The current terms basically force you to choose only one personal Southwest credit card among the three. But you can have both personal and business cards.

Recommended Downgrade Options

  • You can not downgrade this card to any card with no annual fee, so I suggest you close it when you don』t want to keep it any longer.

After Applying

  • Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
  • Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn』t get approve immediately. Your personal information will be acquired and they will then review it. You seldom answer questions, instead, just enjoy the music and then you get approved or rejected, or further information is needed to be hand in to the branch or faxed.

Historical Offers Chart

Note: Sometimes there is 50k+50k offer on this card. But the spending requirement for the latter 50k is huge, so we don』t treat them as sign-up bonus, we treat them as spending bonus instead.

Application Link


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