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2025.7 Update: This card is completely renewed, and the annual fee is increased from $69 to $99. The welcome offer is increased to 100k, which is the best ever offer on this card. The new benefits are marked with [New] below.
2025.4 Update: The higher offer is expired. Currently there’s only a 50k offer.
2024.11 Update: The new offer is 40k+$400. Offer ends on 2024.10.09. This one is not as good as the previous 85k offer.
Application Link
Benefits
- 100k offer: earn 100,000 Southwest Miles after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first 5 months. This is the best offer on this card.
- We value Southwest Miles at 1.3 cents/point (Airline Miles Value), so the 100k highest offer is worth about $1,300. See A Beginner’s Guide to Southwest Miles for details about Southwest Miles.
- [New] Earn 2x miles per dollar spent on Southwest Airlines; Earn 2x miles per dollar spent at gas stations and grocery stores on the first $5,000 in combined purchases per anniversary year; Earn 1x mile per dollar spent on all other purchases.
- Receive 3,000 Southwest Miles every year on your Cardmember anniversary.
- [New] First checked bag free. Cardmembers and up to 8 additional passengers in the same reservation can check their first bag at no additional cost.
- [New] Standard Seat Selection within 48 hours prior to departure, when available. If you don’t have a co-branded credit card or elite status, the lowest fare on Southwest only lets you select your seat at check-in.
- [New] Cardmembers and up to 8 passengers in the same reservation will board with Group 5.
- [New] Receive a 10% promo code each year on your cardmember anniversary (Excludes Basic fare).
- 2 EarlyBird Check-In per year. [New] This benefit will end on Dec 31, 2025.
- 25% back on in-flight purchases.
- If you earn 125k Southwest miles in a year, you get the Southwest companion pass certificate which is valid until the end of next calendar year!
- [New] 10,000 companion Pass qualifying points boost each year.
- [New] No foreign transaction fee.
- Refer a friend (targeted): You can earn 5,000 bonus Southwest miles for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 10 approved referrals (50,000 Southwest miles) per calendar year.
Disadvantages
- [New] Annual fee $99, not waived first year.
- Southwest doesn’t have airlines partners, so the miles can only be redeemed for flights on Southwest Airlines itself. Southwest only flies domestically within the USA and to/from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Recommended Application Time
- [5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application for this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts open over 24 months, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
- This product is available to you if you do not have any Southwest personal credit card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for any Southwest personal credit card in the past 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
- Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days.
- We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history of more than a year.
Summary
The welcome bonus is solid. When the bonuses are at their peak, applying for one personal and one business Southwest card together can earn you over 125k Southwest points—enough to unlock the Companion Pass right away. (Note: You can no longer apply for two personal Southwest cards within the same year.) If you only apply for a personal card and skip the business card, it’s actually quite hard to earn the Companion Pass. Since the Companion Pass is valid for the remainder of the year you earn it plus the entire following year, applying early in the calendar year gives you the longest possible validity. So if you’re eyeing Southwest, the beginning of the year is the best time to go for it.
Currently, you can only hold one of the three personal Southwest cards. If you don’t fly Southwest often and are just in it for the signup bonus, the Southwest Plus card—with the lowest annual fee—is your best bet.
After the 2025 refresh and annual fee increases across the Southwest lineup, there’s really not much long-term value in keeping these cards. They’re mostly just good for the welcome bonus.
Related Credit Cards
| Chase Southwest Plus | Chase Southwest Premier | Chase Southwest Priority | Chase Southwest Premier Business | Chase Southwest Performance Business | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Fee | $99 | $149 | $229 | $149 | $299 |
| Annual Miles | 3,000 | 6,000 | 7,500 | 6,000 | 9,000 |
| Best Sign-up Bonus | 100k | 100k | 100k | 60k | 80k |
The current terms force you to choose only one personal Southwest credit card among the three. But you can have both personal and business cards.
Recommended Downgrade Options
- You can not downgrade this card to any card with no annual fee, so I suggest you close it when you don’t want to keep it any longer.
After Applying
- Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the response from the automated line will be one of the following: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now. Note this is all anecdotal, and your application may switch from one status to another throughout the application process.
- Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn’t get immediately approved.
Historical Offers Chart
Note: Sometimes there is 50k+50k offer on this card. But the spending requirement for the latter 50k is huge, so we don’t treat them as sign-up bonus, we treat them as spending bonus instead.
Application Link
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