Southwest Credit Card Points

Earning Southwest Credit Card Points

There's three Southwest personal cards and one Southwest business card that you can use to earn Southwest Rapid Rewards Points on everyday purchases. The points that you earn with these cards will be deposited into your account every monthly shortly after your statement closes. Southwest credit card points will only be deposited if your account is in good standing.

Southwest Priority Credit Card

The Southwest Priority Credit Card is the highest tiered personal Southwest credit card. When you use this card to make purchases, you'll earn points at the following rates:

• 2 Points Per $1 on Southwest Purchases
• 2 Points Per $1 with Southwest Hotel & Car Partners
• 1 Point Per $1 on Everything Else

Along with earning a decent amount of points on your spend, you'll also receive a large handful of other benefits including:

• Annual $75 Travel Credit
• 7,500 Anniversary Points
• Ability To Earn Tier Qualifying Points w/ Spend
• Boarding Upgrades
• Discounts On In-Flight Purchases
• Travel & Purchase Insurance

Southwest Premier Credit Card

The Southwest Premier Credit Card is the mid-tier Southwest credit card and offers the same earning rates as the Priority Card. Those rates are:

• 2 Points Per $1 on Southwest Purchases
• 2 Points Per $1 with Southwest Hotel & Car Partners
• 1 Point Per $1 on Everything Else

The big difference here is that the Southwest Premier Card features less benefits than the Priority. With the Southwest Premier Card, you'll receive benefits such as:

• 6,000 Anniversary Points
• Ability To Earn Tier Qualifying Points w/ Spend
• Travel & Purchase Insurance

As you can see, it's not as packed with benefits as the Southwest Priority Card.

Southwest Plus Credit Card

The Southwest Plus Credit Card is the lowest-tiered personal card in the bunch. Even with that being the case, you'll still earn points at the same rate of:

• 2 Points Per $1 on Southwest Purchases
• 2 Points Per $1 with Southwest Hotel & Car Partners
• 1 Point Per $1 on Everything Else

As you can probably guess, the benefits offered on the card are pretty minimal. The Southwest Plus Credit Card benefits include:

• 3,000 Anniversary Points
• Travel & Purchase Insurance

The Southwest Plus Credit Card is a solid option if you're looking to earn Southwest Points and don't need all the bells and whistles of the other two cards, but do note that there are better cards for earning Southwest Points since you can transfer points to your Southwest Rapid Rewards account using partners.

Southwest Performance Business Credit Card

The Southwest Performance Business Credit Card is the only available business card and offers the most benefits and highest earnings when compared against the personal Southwest credit cards. It earns:

• 3 Points Per $1 on Southwest Purchases
• 3 Points Per $1 with Southwest Hotel & Car Partners
• 2 Points Per $1 on Advertising
• 2 Points Per $1 on Internet
• 2 Points Per $1 on Cable Services
• 2 Points Per $1 on Phone Services
• 1 Point Per $1 on Everything Else

Those are some pretty good earning rates that are also backed up by a bunch of additional card benefits such as:

• 9,000 Anniversary Points
• 4 Upgraded Boarding Annually
• In-Flight Wi-Fi Credits
• Up To $100 Towards Global Entry or TSA PreCheck
• Ability To Earn Tier Qualifying Points w/ Spend
• Travel & Purchase Insurance

Southwest Premier Business Credit Card

The Southwest Premier Business Credit Card is a step down from the Performance Business card. It offers the same earnings as the personal Southwest Credit Cards which is:

• 2 Points Per $1 on Southwest Purchases
• 2 Points Per $1 with Southwest Hotel & Car Partners
• 1 Point Per $1 on Everything Else

The benefits of the Southwest Premier Business Credit Card mirrors the benefits of the Southwest Premier Card:

• 6,000 Anniversary Points
• Ability To Earn Tier Qualifying Points w/ Spend
• Travel & Purchase Insurance

Southwest Credit Card Hotel & Car Partners

All of the Southwest Credit Cards earn bonus points when spending with Southwest Hotel and Rental Car partners. This is an easy way to earn a few extra points when booking other parts of your trip.

Southwest hotel partners are:

• Best Western
• Radisson Rewards
• Choice Hotels
• World of Hyatt
• Marriott Bonvoy
• MGM Resorts International
• Rocketmiles

Southwest rental car partners are:

• Alamo
• Avis
• Budget
• Dollar
• Hertz
• National
• Payless
• Thrifty

Southwest Credit Card Points Value

Southwest Points will typically give you the best value when you redeem them towards flights on Southwest Airlines. The Point Calculator averages this to be around 1.3 cents per point. With that in mind, you'll earn an average of around a 2.6% return on your Southwest, Southwest Hotel Partner, and Southwest Car Partner purchases and around a 1.3% return on all other spend. Again, this is just an estimate based on redeeming for Southwest flights. You could possibility value Southwest Points higher or lower depending on how you use them since they can also be redeemed for gift cards, car rentals, and hotel stays.

Southwest Credit Card Points Expiration

Regardless of whether or not you have a co-branded Southwest credit card, Southwest Rapid Rewards Points do not expire. This is great considering that most airlines require you to have some kind of activity on your account within a certain block of time. What this also means that if you were to close your Southwest Rapid Rewards account, your points would still be safe. Just note that you'll want to make sure that your points post to your account before closing any accounts.

Best Credit Cards For Earning Southwest Points

If you're looking to experience benefits with Southwest and don't have status, picking up cards like the Southwest Priority Credit Card or Southwest Performance Business Card can be very beneficial. But, if you're looking to maximize your point earnings, there are generally better cards for earning Southwest Rapid Rewards Points. This is because Southwest is a direct transfer partner of several large rewards programs. This means you can earn rewards with other programs and transfer those earned points to your Southwest account.

Listed below are all of the non-Southwest cards that you can use to earn Southwest Rapid Rewards Points through point transfers.

If you want to know which credit cards in the list above will give you the most Southwest Points per $1 spent, you can use the Best Credit Cards For Southwest Points Calculator.