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Extension of Companion Pass

Nicole94
Explorer C

I'm a regular business traveler on SWA, and have been for the past four plus years, however, due to COVID and many travel bans/restrictions in the Southwest, I was forced to cease and cancel many business trips. All but one trip was canceled for the month of December..I'm about 17K points away from earning CP for the entire year of 2021. Will SWA consider extending the CP for 2021 due to COVID?

13 REPLIES 13

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

dfwskier
Aviator A
Solution

For the reasons you cited, Southwest already granted every RR member 25,000 companion pass qualifying points.

 

I would be surprised at any additional CP concessions from the airline.

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

SWFlyer007
Aviator C

I agree.  The reason you're not 42,000 points away is the 25k SWA gave you.  And at this point, the 17K would be difficult without flying.  You have 4 days to go somewhere on a Business Select flight that might get you close, but other than that. I think you waited way too late to address this.  

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

If you’ve been a companion pass holder before or currently are one then you could be extended already through June. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if long-time companion pass holders that don’t make it receive some sort of promotional offer. Southwest has done this before for people that missed A-list. Especially right now when they have the excess capacity on average. Keeping the reliable customers will be a priority. 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

Angelalynnp
Explorer C

Hmmm, they  won't give me my well deserved companion pass and the 6 months is useless during the worst part of the pandemic.

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

PDFelter
Frequent Flyer B

As someone that worked hard to earn the required amount of points needed to obtain the Companion Pass, I'm not certain how you feel you should get the "well deserved" companion pass if you didn't meet the requirements.  SW already gave us 25k points to help achieve the goal, along with extending it for 6 months if you didn't meet the requirements.

 

Sorry, but you didn't meet the requirements, you shouldn't get the pass.  There are other ways to earn it besides flying.  I do it every year (a lot of work, but doable).  

 

Hoping, for you, life returns to normal in a few weeks and you can then start traveling again to earn the CP for next year.

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

jasmine9
Explorer C

I've been a frequent flyer with SWA for a many years now and have fortunately earned the companion pass for the last 7 or 8 years.  However, being a business traveler, I was not able to travel for business 10 months of 2020.  When traveling, I exclusively used my SWA credit card for all my flights, car rentals and expenses on my trips.  A double whammy no flight and not expense.  I was aware SWA had given us 25K to help with the companion pass, but it wasn't enough for me to achieve companion for the remainder of 2021.  I realize they were hit hard in their wallets just like other, but it would have been much appreciated they had simply extended the companion pass to the full year.  Don't get my wrong, I'm thankful for the 6 months although not sure of how much travel there will be due to continuing pandemic.  I used my credit card for all that I could this year and came up short too.  Fingers crossed they extend it.  

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

dfwskier
Aviator A

@jasmine9 wrote:

 I used my credit card for all that I could this year and came up short too.  Fingers crossed they extend it.  


I hope you are right.

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

NicoleAshley
Employee
Employee

Hey @jasmine9, depending on when you earned Companion Pass, you might be receiving good news today. Be on the lookout for a Rapid Rewards email.

Nicole
Community Manager

Re: Extension of Companion Pass

soxfan82
Adventurer C

Just saw that they extended Companion Pass thru December 2021, which is cool for people whose pass ended in 2020 (since they already had extended it thru June, 2021).

 

But for people who earned their pass in 2020 (I earned mine in March 2020 right before COVID got big), we already earned the pass thru December 2021 anyway, and are losing the same time to use it as everyone else - without the benefit of having gotten to use it for a year before COVID. I would love to see the same benefit extended to us, in terms of tacking on extra time to the pass to use it later.