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“I would love to use points for a flight, but I just don’t fly enough to earn the points I need.”
Sound familiar? We hear this all the time from people who don’t travel enough to earn miles by flying alone.
Although flying is one way to earn miles, there are so many other ways to rack up serious frequent flyer miles that don’t involve ever stepping foot inside of a plane.
Today, we are talking about Southwest, one of our favorite airlines for domestic and Caribbean travel. Not only is its Rapid Rewards frequent flyer program easy to use, but its customer service is also top-notch and there are no checked bag fees or change fees.
Southwest Airlines’ loyalty program, Rapid Rewards, is straightforward and easy to use.
Each flight’s price in Rapid Rewards points is dependent on the cash price of the ticket. You can expect to get right around 1.3 cents per point value. Plus, there are no blackout dates: if a cash ticket is available, you’ll be able to purchase the ticket in points.
You can easily toggle back and forth between the cash price and the price in points for any flight.
You can earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points through Southwest co-branded credit cards and Chase cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points. Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to Southwest at a 1:1 ratio, so any Ultimate Rewards points you have can be easily turned into Rapid Rewards points.
You might be surprised to know that the best-earning rate for Southwest Rapid Rewards points isn’t on the Southwest credit cards!
Many of the Chase credit cards offer better bonus categories and larger sign-up bonuses and are therefore a better long-term option. Don’t forget, when collecting Chase points you have the option of not only transferring to Southwest but also many of its other Chase travel partners. This makes so much more sense than pooling all your points with just Southwest!
However, don’t count out the Southwest cards. They have nice sign-up bonuses and points earned from these cards count toward the Southwest Companion Pass.
Did you know you can earn points simply by referring friends and family to sign up for a credit card that you hold? Not all Chase cards have a referral bonus at all times, but they are pretty frequent. Check out our post on Chase’s refer-a-friend program for more info.
To see what referral bonus offers you have, follow these easy steps:
Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to Southwest at a 3:1 ratio. For every 60,000 points transferred, you get an additional 5,000-point bonus.
That means for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer, you’ll get 25,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. There’s a minimum of 3,000 points required to make a transfer and the transfer can take 1 day to complete.
While this isn’t the best way to redeem Marriott Bonvoy points, it could make sense if you really need Southwest Rapid Rewards points and don’t have much use for Marriott Bonvoy points.
You can earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points just by going out to eat through Rapid Rewards Dining. When you join Rapid Rewards Dining and dine at a participating restaurant and pay with your registered card, you’ll earn bonus Southwest Rapid Rewards points.
There are participating restaurants all over the country. You can search for a specific restaurant or search by region. Or register your credit card and get surprised when bonus points pop up in your account!
The Rapid Rewards Dining program offers some bonus ways to earn additional points.
Hot Tip: Rapid Rewards Dining occasionally offers even more bonus points for new members who dine and review their experiences in the first 30 days of membership. Visit rapidrewardsdining.com for up-to-date bonus offers.
Another way to increase your points earning through the dining program is by registering a Southwest credit card (or better yet, a Chase card that earns 2x or 3x points on dining) to your account — this way, you can double-dip on Rapid Rewards points. If you happen to hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve card or Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you can max out your points-earning since these cards earn 3x points at restaurants.
If you want to earn lots of Southwest Rapid Rewards points, you should check out the Rapid Rewards shopping portal.
This site allows you to earn points through your everyday online spending. As with its dining program, you can double-dip by using your Southwest credit card or a Chase Ultimate Rewards credit card.
Each store offers a different number of points per dollar spent plus many offer specials and deals throughout the year. Before clicking through, make sure you know the terms of each offer to verify that your purchase will earn points.
Here are some examples of the lucrative offers that have been offered recently:
This list is by no means complete. There are tons of stores offering bonus Rapid Rewards points! Next time you need to make an online purchase, start at the Rapid Rewards shopping portal to check if the store is offering bonus points. You’ll be on your next Southwest flight in no time.
To find the best offers, click on Extra Rewards in the top menu bar.
Bottom Line: The Southwest Rapid Rewards shopping portal offers bonus points for many different online stores and subscription services.
If you tend to forget to start your shopping on a shopping portal, consider getting the Southwest Rapid Rewards Button. The button will allow you to see points earning rates in your search results, plus it will remind you to go through the Rapid Rewards shopping portal.
To get the button, scroll to the bottom of the Rapid Rewards Shopping website and click Get The Button.
The button is currently only available on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
Did you know that you can earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points at hotels?
SouthwestHotels.com is Southwest Airlines’ partnership site with Booking.com which allows you to book a hotel and earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points at the same time. In addition to hotels, you can book apartments, B&Bs, motels, homestays, campgrounds, and even hostels on this site. One quirk we found with this site is sometimes the bonus points you earn can increase exponentially with the number of nights you book.
Check out this listing for The Ritz-Carlton, Chicago. When you book 1 night through SouthwestHotels.com, you can earn 419 bonus points. However, if you book 3 nights, you can earn 20,000 bonus points!
Hot Tip: Base points earned from Southwest Airlines partners count toward Companion Pass qualification.
Rocketmiles is another website that rewards you with Southwest Rapid Rewards points when you book a hotel. You can expect to earn 1,000 to 10,000 bonus points per night. However, you won’t earn any additional hotel loyalty points.
Searching for a hotel on Rocketmiles is similar to any other OTA. Once you have your list of search results, you will be able to see the number of Rapid Rewards points you can earn with each booking to the right of the screen underneath the price.
The price shown is per night, but the point value shown is for the whole stay.
Hot Tip: You will NOT earn hotel loyalty points from any stay booked on Rocketmiles and any elite status you have with a hotel may not be recognized.
You can earn Rapid Rewards points each time you stay at Best Western. Just set your Best Western Rewards earning preference to Partner Rewards>Southwest Airlines. Then show your Rapid Rewards account number at check-in.
You can also transfer Best Western Rewards points to Rapid Rewards points.
You can transfer your Choice Privileges points to Southwest.
You can earn 600 Southwest Rapid Rewards points per stay at over 7,300 Marriott hotels across the world.
To earn points, you will need to change your earning preference to Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards instead of Marriott Bonvoy. Then, provide both numbers upon check-in.
Marriott Bonvoy points can also transfer to Southwest at the following rates:
For every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points transferred, you’ll get an additional bonus of 5,000 Rapid Rewards points.
MGM Rewards members staying at ARIA, Bellagio, Delano Las Vegas, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, The Mirage, New York-New York, NoMad Las Vegas, Park MGM, The Signature at MGM Grand, or Vdara can earn 600 Rapid Rewards points per stay.
Both your MGM Rewards and Rapid Rewards membership numbers need to be attached to your reservation to qualify.
When you stay at a participating Radisson brand, including Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Park Inn by Radisson, Park Plaza, Radisson, Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson Individuals, and Radisson RED, you can earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points. All you need to do is provide your Rapid Rewards number at check-in.
Radisson Rewards Americas points can be transferred to Southwest manually or automatically. To set up an automatic transfer, set the earning preference in your Radisson account to Rapid Rewards. Your points will automatically convert to Rapid Rewards points at a rate of 10,000 Radisson Rewards points to 1,000 Rapid Rewards points. Or you can redeem your points manually in the following increments:
If you are a World of Hyatt member, you can earn an additional 600 Rapid Rewards points for each qualifying stay at select Hyatt hotels. Participating brands include Andaz, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt Centric, Hyatt House, Hyatt Place, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Zilara, Hyatt Ziva, Park Hyatt, and The Unbound Collection by Hyatt.
To qualify for Rapid Rewards points, each stay must be booked directly through Hyatt, and Rapid Rewards points need to be selected as your currency of choice.
In addition, you can transfer World of Hyatt points to Rapid Rewards points. While the transfer rate isn’t spectacular, it’s good to know your options if you need to top off your account for a redemption and don’t have any other options.
Hot Tip: Points transferred to Southwest Rapid Rewards from hotel partners do NOT count towards the Southwest Companion Pass.
Renting a car is something many of us do while on vacation. Why not earn some extra Rapid Rewards points at the same time?! You can do just that when you rent your car through Southwest and its partners.
Hot Tip: When booking a rental car through any of the below Southwest links, be sure to add your Rapid Rewards number to earn your bonus points.
Earn 600 points on each Alamo car rental at participating locations worldwide by requesting Rapid Rewards points at the time of rental.
Earn up to 2,400 points and save up to 35% on each car rental at participating U.S. airport locations through February 28, 2023. Book via Southwest’s Avis page and use MUAA042 in the Coupon Code field and K024700 in the Avis Worldwide (AWD) field.
Earn up to 2,400 points and save up to 30% on each car rental at participating U.S. airport locations through February 28,, 2023. Reservations must be made through Southwest to receive bonus points.
Earn up to 1,200 points and save up to 15% on each Dollar car rental at participating locations worldwide, by booking through Southwest and providing your Rapid Rewards number.
Earn up to 2,400 points on each car rental. Book through Southwest or use Promotion Code 210374 and CDP 205418.
Earn 600 points on each National car rental at participating locations worldwide by requesting Rapid Rewards points at the time of rental.
Earn 1,200 Rapid Rewards points and save 10% on your next rental booked and completed by February 28, 2023. Click here to book and use promotion code A060913.
Earn up to 1,200 points on and save 10% off of base rates for each Thrifty car rental at participating locations worldwide through June 30, 2023, by booking through Southwest and providing your Rapid Rewards number.
In addition, you’ll earn 600 bonus points after 3 rentals at a U.S. airport location within a 12-month period.
Bottom Line: View the most up-to-date rental car points offers or book a rental car through Southwest.
Earn Rapid Rewards points with any Laithwaite’s Wine purchase:
You can earn 1,000 bonus Rapid Rewards points with each Harry & David order over $29.99. Visit harryanddavid.com/rapidrewards and enter code SW44 plus your Rapid Rewards number (in the Membership ID field) to earn your bonus points.
You can earn 1,200 Rapid Reward bonus points on each of your first 5 Home Chef boxes.
You’ll earn 1,000 bonus Rapid Rewards points with each 1-800-Flowers.com order of $29.99 or more with promo code RR22.
If you live in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania you can earn Rapid Rewards points by choosing NRG Home as your electricity supplier. After being a customer for 2 months, you can earn a 10,000-point enrollment bonus. If you continue to be a customer, you can earn 2 points per dollar on the supply portion of your energy bill.
You can sign up in 2 ways:
If you live in Texas, you can enroll in the Reliant Secure 24 Plan with Rapid Rewards. You will earn a 15,000-point enrollment bonus plus 500 points each month for 24 months for a total of 27,000 Rapid Rewards points over a 24-month term. Sign up online or call Reliant at 866-222-7100 and mention offer code XW1193. Have your Rapid Rewards account number available.
Sign up for the MakeItCount program to earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points at Marathon gas stations. Sign up online at makeitcount.com/rapidrewards to earn 1 Rapid Rewards point for every gallon of fuel purchased.
These bonus point opportunities take a little more time than just clicking through a shopping portal, but when points are involved, sometimes you have to get creative to earn all that you can!
Earn Rapid Rewards points just for participating in various market research surveys. This program is free to join, and you can participate as much or as little as you want. The catch is that enrollment happens during random times of the year. Southwest’s website has more info and you’ll be able to keep track of the next enrollment opportunity.
After signing up, you can earn 500 bonus points after taking your first survey.
You can earn points by participating in the e-Rewards Opinion Panel. You will earn e-Rewards Currency for participating in market research surveys which can then be transferred into Rapid Rewards points.
This one also has limited enrollment periods. Visit Southwest’s website to keep track of the next enrollment opportunity.
Each active EA+ member can earn 1,200 bonus Rapid Rewards points for the first full year of membership, and an additional 1,200 points for each year of membership.
Southwest Vacations offers package deals including flight, hotel, car rental, and activities. With Southwest Vacations, you’ll earn points on the hotel, car, and activity portion of your package, in addition to the flights.
You’ll be able to see how many points your vacation package earns on the review page before you enter payment information. Since packages are priced per person, each person will earn bonus points.
While certainly not a primary tactic to accrue points, there’s always the opportunity to flat-out buy Southwest Rapid Rewards points.
To help you decide when to buy points and how to do it we’ve created a guide on buying Southwest Rapid Rewards points to help you out.
As you can see, there are tons of ways to earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points without flying a single mile! Don’t forget you can also earn points the old-fashioned (but still fun) way — taking a Southwest flight.
Some of these earning methods take a little bit of effort and planning, but if Southwest Rapid Rewards points are what you’re after — it can be worth it!
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Katie has been in the points and miles game since 2015 and started her own blog in 2016. She’s been freelance writing since then and her work has been featured in publications like Travel + Leisure and Forbes Advisor.
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19 comments
kori
July 20, 2018
Is there a benefit to making your earning preference as southwest rapid rewards vs accumulating marriott points and transferring them over in bulk?
Thanks,
Kori
Katie Seemann
July 21, 2018
When you set your Marriott earning preferences to Southwest, the transfer rate isn’t great. I would only do that if you have a boat load of Marriott points and just need to top off your Southwest account. Without setting your earning preference to Southwest, the only way to transfer Marriott points into Southwest is by purchasing a Hotel + Air package. The miles portion of this package transfers at a 1:1 ratio. For example, if you need 50,000 Southwest points, you would have to transfer 140,000 Marriott points to make that happen. Or you could purchase a Marriott Hotel + Air package for 200,000 points which also gets you a 7 night stay at a Category 1-5 hotel. The Hotel + Air package is a better deal (IF you have the extra Marriott points!). Hope that helps!
Noah
January 03, 2019
@katie If you have both southwest and a Chase Sapphire card, can you double dip on points if you purchase Southwest Vacations to get a hotel (those 10,000 points ones) and would Chase give you 2x points as well?
Katie Seemann
January 03, 2019
Hi Noah,
Since Southwest Vacations is in partnership with booking.com, it should show up as an online travel agency on your credit card statement which would categorize as travel. According to Chase’s website:
“Merchants in the travel category include airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, and operators of passenger trains, buses, taxis, limousines, ferries, toll bridges and highways, and parking lots and garages.”
I’ve never done it, but I think it should work. That would be a great way to earn lots of points – hope it works for you!!
Rodney Stephenson
November 07, 2019
@Katie
How long do partners like booking.com take to post the SW RR points? I would love to take advantage of the companion pass this year, but not sure how to get those points posted before the end of the year. Any advice on how to handle this? We will be booking a stay this weekend that offers 20,000 RR points. 🙂
Katie Seemann
November 11, 2019
Hi Rodney,
I did a little digging since the terms and conditions about this is a little unclear. According to some crowdsourced info, points earned from Southwesthotels.com (the booking.com partner site) DO count towards Companion Pass. The terms say they could take 6-8 weeks to post, however I was reading a lot of accounts of people saying their points posted within a few days of completing their stay. If this 20K points will get you to 110K for the CP, it’s worth a shot!
Please come back and let us know if and when they post.
MELODY COUNTESS
February 12, 2020
With the NRG offer, do the points earned count towards earning a companion pass?
Jarrod West
February 14, 2020
Hi Melody,
Yes, the points earned from that offer should count towards the companion pass.
Chuck
February 19, 2020
What’s NRG? I carried the CSR card for almost a year, but I think I will cancel shortly. I live in Denver and they closed the lounge that helped me justify the expense. I’m also in a new work situation so I must use my corporate card for all travel expenses so the CSR loses even more value. I have a Southwest Card that we use to help achieve companion pass. Ultimately, I’m looking for any creative ways to help us continue to achieve companion pass and maximize the benefits of the travel cards. I’m open to suggestions.
Jarrod West
February 19, 2020
Hi Chuck,
NRG is an electricity provider for those that live in IL, MA, MD, NJ, OH, or PA. Which Southwest card do you currently have open? You could always add another to give you an added boost towards the companion pass. Keep in mind that Chase will only allow you to receive the bonus on one personal Southwest card though.
joe
February 24, 2020
Southwest Hotels Double Your Points:
There’s currently a double your points offer for hotel stays booked through March 2nd. Any sense if that is in addition to the Bonus Point hotels, i.e. you note above the ability to earn up to 10k points per night based on which hotel you select? I’ve read all of the fine print and haven’t found anything that excludes those hotels.
Secondarily, I haven’t noticed it before but once you select a hotel in one of those bonus point categories. On the room select page you can chose a room that earns more points (if the hotel list shows 4,000, usually there will be an option to select a room at 4,000 and one at 8,000, the cost difference is about $.019 per mile).
Once you select the higher points room, an option to Boost Your Points will appear on the checkout page, also at $.019 per mile. I recently booked a room that started at 8,000 points for boosted it all the way to 20,000 points, what I need to hit the 125,000.
I recently did this to earn 20,000 miles to get me to the Companion Pass and can confirm they did count towards it. I just did it a second time and waiting for the miles to post to get the CP. But, I’m really curious about whether the double points is going to double up that offer. I can’t find any fine print that excludes it. (First transaction was 3 weeks ago, second transaction was this weekend). As for the first transaction, I checked out on Monday and the points appeared on Friday.
Bill
November 30, 2020
Do you accumulate points by making charitable contributions or paying the IRS for taxes owed?
Jarrod West
December 01, 2020
Hi Bill,
Yes, you should earn points for both of those things.
Mike
June 10, 2022
Hello, I have a question about Southwest Hotels Bonus Points ability to earn up to 10k points per night based on which hotel you select.
Do these extra points count towards Companion Pass. I have a separate reservation that is $125 less but if I book through Southwest Hotels it gives me 23,000 bonus RR points. Do those 23,000 count towards my Companion Pass. TY
Katie Seemann
June 14, 2022
Hi Mike,
Those hotel points should count toward Companion Pass qualification as long as they code as base points and not bonus points.
Jone
July 11, 2022
If I cancel NRG after earning points with NRG offer and then contract with NRG again, will I be eligible for a new offer?
Is it possible to get the bonus twice?
Jarrod West
July 11, 2022
Hi Jone,
Yes, it should be possible for you to get the bonus twice.
Jone
July 11, 2022
Thank you for your comment.
I will try!
Sue
July 13, 2022
Has booking.com discontinued the points plus program with Southwest? Yesterday I could find points plus hotels. Today–NONE.
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