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Southwest Airlines just launched a new promotion to help you earn a Companion Pass, but you must act fast. The newest offer lets members earn a temporary Companion Pass after just one eligible round-trip (or two one-way flights) booked by August 28, 2025, and flown by November 15, 2025.
Here are the details of this flash Southwest Companion Pass promotion.
Earn a Southwest Promotional Companion Pass With One Round-Trip
A few times a year, Southwest offers travelers the chance to earn a temporary Southwest Companion Pass. However, these promotions always have a short booking window, and the Companion Pass you earn is only valid for a short period.
To take advantage of this promotion, you'll need to book a round-trip (or two one-ways) by August 28, 2025 for travel before November 15, 2025. Before booking your flights, you must register for this promotion. Then, after completing one round-trip (or two one-way flights), you will receive a temporary Companion Pass valid from January 6 through March 6, 2026.
If that seems short, you're not wrong. This temporary Companion Pass will only be valid for two months next winter. That's much shorter than the up to two years you'd get to enjoy BOGO travel if you earn the Southwest Companion Pass organically — by timing Rapid Rewards co-branded card applications and spending.
There are plenty of ways to earn this promotional Companion Pass without spending much. On the West Coast, you can often hop between airports for a reasonable price, which makes the requirement to book a non-Basic fare less of a burden.
But you can find good deals on the East Coast, too. For example, you could book a Choice fare round-trip between Orlando (MCO) and Richmond (RIC) for under $130 and lock in two months of Southwest’s Companion Pass. Depending on how often you use it, the savings from the Companion Pass could easily outweigh the cost of earning it.
Terms and conditions
- Members must register for this promotion before booking the qualifying flights
- Book a round-trip flight or two one-way flights before August 28, 2025 for flights between now and November 15, 2025.
- Not valid on Basic fares
- Receive a Companion Pass valid between January 6 and March 6, 2026
- Designate your companion after receiving the pass. You can change your Southwest Companion Pass companion up to three times.
Our Take
Southwest has offered a similar promotional Companion Pass several times over the past few years. This time, Southwest is offering the chance to earn a Companion Pass that's only valid for two months during slower winter travel — with no blackout dates.
If you already have a flight booked during the promotional period, remember that Southwest has no cancellation fees (though your fare may not be refundable). Even though the offer states it's only valid on new (non-Basic) bookings, you might be able to cancel your existing reservation, register for this promotion, and then rebook your flights.
- Earn 85,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
- 3,000 anniversary points each year.
- Earn 2 points per $1 spent on Southwest Airlines® purchases
- Earn 2 points for every $1 you spend at gas stations and grocery stores on the first $5,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year
- Cardmembers and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation can check their first bag at no additional cost.
- Select a Standard seat within 48 hours prior to departure, when available.
- Earn 1 point for every $1 spent on all other purchases.
- No foreign transaction fees.
- Member FDIC
- Rates & Fees
- 2X points per $1 spent on Southwest® purchases
- 2 points for every $1 you spend at gas stations and grocery stores on the first $5,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year
- 1X point per $1 spent on all other purchases
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card (Rates & Fees)
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I booked a roundtrip flight in May about a week ago and noticed that the prices just dropped. So I registered for the bonus, then canceled my flight, and re-booked it using the travel credits from the previously canceled flight. Would this work for the promo?
It sure should! You registered before booking. Using travel credits shouldn’t prevent you from getting the promotion!
If I purchased multiple qualifying rt tickets during the promotional purchase period (Sept 6th-8th) to fly during the promotional flight period (Sep 6th – Nov 17th) and I actually fly on those tickets, will I earn more than one Promotional Companion Pass? I didn’t see any language in the promotional rules that limited promotional companion passes to one per person for this promotion.
Interesting. I’m pretty sure Southwest will limit you to one Companion Pass…but you might have found a loophole.
Thank you for sharing this clear, concise, and enticiting offer from Southwest! Would have missed it otherwise! Always something GREAT to be found by checking the blog on Award Wallet. Appreciate you.
Thanks for reading Kayla! Happy we were able to help you find out about this promo.
very helpful post- thank you!
Great deal, I was able to book it
The above says, “Changes to your itinerary will cancel the Companion Pass” while the SW terms state that it “may eliminate qualification for this promotion.” Do we know which is accurate? I don’t have any experience with SW promotions. I was rushing to beat the deadline and inadvertently booked the same leg of my trip twice instead of one each TO and FROM. Called immediately but there’s a 2 hour + wait. I went on and changed one of the reservations (at a higher cost. 🙁 ) The change occurred AFTER the deadline passed but the original confirmation was right at the deadline. I ask because I booked the flight at this time specifically to get the promotion. If I’m not going to get it, I’d rather take the trip another time.
Hi Shelly, I wish I had a confident answer for you. I would guess that you could probably convince someone at SW to honor the promotion in light of the nature of the change you made. But that could be time consuming. If you decide to take the flights, I’d love to know whether you encounter a hassle with the promotional CP. Please keep us posted.
Was able to find $49 nonstop fares to go along with this promotion right before midnight. Too bad Southwest pulled out of Newark so will have to trek to LGA instead.
Wish we were allowed to use points to book the initial travel with
Thanks for this, will reach my companion pass sooner
Great consolation for people that are over 5/24 and cannot get the companion pass the usual way.
Nice offer, for those who can use it.
I did register because you never know. However this seems a really short notice promotion. I know I do not have anything planned for travel. I am assuming SW is trying to keep ridership up before the holiday period. It’s awesome if you’ll be traveling. Plus, it gets some people trying out the pass and seeing that maybe it’ll benefit them a lot and get their credit card and try to get the pass for the next year.
Nice find. Will definitely sign up.
Easy way to get a companion pass with only one round trip flight!
Seems like a great deal.
Assuming booking a revenue ticket, does the companion earn miles too?
Unfortunately, no. Southwest says, “The Member who has Companion Pass will earn points on a revenue ticket; however, the designated Companion will not.” (source: FAQ)
Pretty big give away for Southwest. Millions have to be flying during that time period.
Guau! Excelent promotion !
Glad to know about such a great oportunity
Thanks!!
GP
Nice promotion if you are planning on purchasing a SW ticket.
So if I have a reservation already, need to cancel, register. And rebook. Good even if using SWA points to travel?
If I get this, can I still apply for a card in Jan and get a CP with welcome bonus + spend in 2022?
You need to pay cash for the flights for them to qualify to earn this promotional Companion Pass. T&C read “A qualifying one-way flight for this promotion is a one-way revenue flight on Southwest Airlines”
But yes, you can still earn the “regular” Companion Pass in early 2022 even if you have this promotional Companion Pass.
This is certainly tempting to make a mattress run just to get the companion pass. I just wish that covid will not be with us any longer by the time 2022 arrives.
It will be with us I think but we will learn to live with it. I’m personally crossing my fingers for minimal travel disruptions in 2022.
Just live your life in the next couple of years as if the world were in a serious flu season.
Giving Covid advice is delicate business. You usually don’t know the personal risk profile of who you’re talking to, especially online. Put the unfortuante politics aside, you don’t know if you’re talking to someone who’s immunocompromised themselves, living with elderly parents, lacking access to vaccines, etc. For some time, risk calculations are going to be very personal.
My P2 has the companion pass expiring the end of 2021. If Southwest does not extend companion pass for those who earned it in 2020, this will be a good way to extend it a few months. One thing in the fine print, it looks like you will not be able to add the companion until January 6 2022.
That’s correct. We saw that last year when Southwest offered this promotion. You have to wait until the CP is valid before you can add a companion. Thankfully you can still book the original flight now and then just add the companion later.
Yeah, it looks like it’s valid for only a month and a half. 🙁
Registered. Sweet deal! I don’t fly WN too often but this promo is going to work out well for me. I’ll only be able to take advantage of the companion pass one time but that’s still saving me money.
This shows the big effort that airlines are making to recover lost customers during the covid. chears for that
Is there any benefit if I already have a companion pass? ie.., can I take 2 companions on a single flight??
I don’t think so… but I’d be fascinated to hear if you can pull it off!
Pretty sure you can only have it, or not have it. There’s no having two passes.
Excellent promotion, I will fly Southwest the next week so I will register me inmediately, thanks
My round trip fares are more than 3 times the cost from Southwest’s 50th Aniv sale a few months ago. Not going to rebook for that increase in cost.
The companion pass is an amazing deal for flyers like me who take a lot of short flights! Booking companion flights is easy and can be done through the app. Southwest has great incentives.
This is a fantastic promotion, it will be interesting to see if any other airlines come up with some good promotions. Good deals will for sure encourage people to start travelling again
Hopefully this “buy one get one free” offer will increase patronage rapidly. Let’s hope that the pandemic will not return during the upcoming winter season.
Southwest bringing a strong promotion. Wish I had a need/desire to fly right now.
There are really some great flying deals out there now but not sure I am ready o travel due to CVD19.
Any idea why they extended it (although just for 1 day?) Are people not hopping on this amazing deal? Things like this makes me weary.
Well, they are smart. This does make me want to try out SW. Right now? No. I can see that a lot of people will take advantage of this offer. I know that I would jump on this if I had plans to go anywhere on a plane. Giving people a test of what they could have is a good idea because then they’ll crave that new thing. I wonder if they’ll do this again if they see a benefit to it?
This is a really attractive promo and kudos to SW for coming up with something like that. Hopefully this should kick the bit 3’s into offering something more substantial.
What one does, the others often follow. Fingers crossed.
These promotions are getting better and better!
This is a very good opportunity if you are going to book a SW flight in next days.
I’m sure this will benefit some. The window is to narrow so won’t be one of them. ?
That’s a fantastic deal if you have SW flights on the horizon!
Wow! Thanks for the head’s up on this one. That’s a fantastic deal if you have SW flights on the horizon.
This is how you do promotions!
Definitely! A real incentive, and not long to wait.