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Chase has extended Pay Yourself Back on all Southwest Rapid Rewards co-branded cards. This feature lets eligible cardholders “pay themselves back” using Rapid Rewards points earned when using their card.
Chase first launched Pay Yourself Back as a benefit of the Chase Ink and Chase Sapphire cards as a redemption option when travel wasn't possible during the pandemic. But Chase has repeatedly extended this redemption option over the past four years. Later, Pay Yourself Back was extended to the Aeroplan® Credit Card and finally to Southwest credit cards.
So, how does Pay Yourself Back work? And does it make sense for Southwest cardholders to take advantage of this new benefit? Let's dig in.
Pay Yourself Back Categories for Southwest Credit Cards
Southwest credit cardholders can currently only “Pay Yourself Back” for one category: Your card's annual membership fee. This redemption option has no end date. All Southwest credit cards are eligible to Pay Yourself Back for this category — and this category alone.
How to Pay Yourself Back on Southwest Credit Cards
Pay Yourself Back allows Southwest Rapid Rewards cardholders to use Rapid Rewards points earned with their card to cover eligible transactions made with their card. To get started, log into your Chase account and browse to this page.
Scroll down to see if you have any eligible transactions. If so, you can check the box next to the transactions you'd like to redeem Rapid Rewards points to cover. Then, click Continue.
On the next page, you'll have the opportunity to enter how many points you'd like to redeem to offset the purchase. You can select any value between $0.01 and the maximum amount of the purchase — as long as you have enough Southwest Rapid Rewards points in your account. Finally, click “redeem” to complete the process.
However, covering these transactions might not be the best use of your Rapid Rewards points.
Does it make sense to use Pay Yourself Back?
Using Pay Yourself Back to cover these two types of transactions yields little value from your Southwest Rapid Rewards points.
For example, if you wanted to use Rapid Rewards points to cover the annual fee of the Southwest Performance Business Card, you would need to redeem 19,900 points to cover the $199 annual fee. That means you'd get just 1 cent per point in value.
For comparison, AwardWallet users have redeemed Rapid Rewards points for flights at an average value of 1.52¢.
So, does it make sense to use this new Southwest Pay Yourself Back option? In short, no, it does not make sense. There are plenty of other ways to utilize Rapid Rewards points that yield a far better return.
Related: Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Guide
Bottom Line
Southwest Rapid Rewards cardholders can continue to utilize their points to cover the card's annual fee through Pay Yourself Back. However, Rapid Rewards flight redemptions yield much better value than redeeming points through this option.
In past quarters, Chase offered additional eligible categories besides just the annual fee. But this isn't much of a loss as those redemptions provided even less value (typically 0.8 cents each).
Have you ever utilized the Chase Pay Yourself Back benefit? Would you ever redeem Rapid Rewards points to pay yourself back?
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