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Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card is a feature-rich consumer credit card from Chase, which is an attractive choice for frequent flyers of Southwest Airlines.
In this posting, I will describe major features of this card, and then will show award redemption examples.
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1. Major Features
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card is a premium-level personal credit card (of three varieties of the Southwest-affiliated credit cards for consumers) and has the following major features.
1) Welcome Bonus
After spending $1,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening, you will earn 50,000 points.
2) 7,500 bonus points each year (after your first Cardmember anniversary)
After your first Cardmember anniversary, you will automatically receive 7,500 bonus points each and every year. This bonus points will essentially function as a retention bonus, alleviating the burden of the annual fee.
3) Earn up to 3X points on select categories
You will earn 3X points on Southwest® purchases, including flight, inflight, and Southwest gift cards.
You will earn 2X points on local transit and commuting, including rideshare.
You will also earn 2X points on internet, cable, phone services, and select streaming
4) Four Upgrade Boardings per year when available
As a cardmember, you will get 4 Upgrade Boardings per year when available. With this feature, you have the ability of upgrading your boarding position to A1-A15, 24 hours before the flight depending on availability. Therefore, you have the benefit of an earlier boarding position, a better opportunity to select your preferred available seat, and earlier access to overhead bin storage for your carryon luggage.
Because Upgraded Boarding pricing starts at $30 per segment, per Customer, based on the popularity and length of each flight segment, this feature alone is worth minimum $120 per year.
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2. Award Redemption Example
With Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card, you can earn Southwest's Rapid Rewards points.
Where can you spend your hard earned Rapid Rewards points? Of course, on Southwest flights, and in recent years, Southwest has been aggressive in expanding its network, including all four islands in Hawaii.
Southwest has inter-island flights, but its main strength is its extensive network of non-stop flights, mostly from cities in West Coast.
Here is a list of non-stop flights (as of July 2022)
LIH (Kauai)
- LIH-OAK (Oakland)
- LIH-LAS (Las Vegas)
- LIH-PHX (Pheonix)
- LIH-LAX (Los Angeles)
- LIH-SAN (San Diego)
HNL (Honolulu)
- HNL-SMF (Sacramento)
- HNL-OAK (Oakland)
- HNL-SJC (San Jose)
- HNL-LAS (Las Vegas)
- HNL-PHX (Pheonix)
- HNL-LAX (Los Angeles)
- HNL-LGB (Long Beach)
- HNL-SAN (San Diego)
OGG (Maui)
- OGG-SMF (Sacramento)
- OGG-OAK (Oakland)
- OGG-LAS (Las Vegas)
- OGG-PHX (Phoenix)
- OGG-LAX (Los Angeles)
- OGG-LGB (Long Beach)
- OGG-SAN (San Diego)
KOA (Kona)
- OGG-LAS (LAS)
- OGG-OAK (Oakland)
- OGG-SJC (San Jose)
- OGG-LAX (Los Angeles)
- OGG-SAN (San Diego)
Southwest doesn't have a fixed redemption chart, and its required points for an award ticket is correlated to a ticket price.
It may seem complicated, but with the Southwest's Low Fare Calendar, it is straightforward to find days with lowest fares (and lowest points).
