Southwest Rapid Rewards - Companion Pass Holder in the News

From Bad economy brings out the cheapest of the cheap Check out the 50 top money-saving tips from this year's contest (http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090419/COLUMNIST0401/904190309):

When it comes to travel, Bill Hardin of Brentwood saves big and small. Hardin, who travels a lot on business, got creative in order to snag a free year-long companion pass for his wife through Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards program. The free pass is earned when you fly Southwest a total of 100 times in a 12-month period. When Hardin realized that he was dangerously close to the 100 mark — he had 96 flights in 11 3/4 months — he found the cheapest Southwest flights from Nashville to any other city and took them within the remaining week. That's right. He flew back and forth to Birmingham for no good reason except to make it to the 100 flight mark.* "The prize: a companion pass for my wife which enabled her to travel with me absolutely free for the next year. With three adult children in SWA-served cities, we probably saved $3,000 in airfare the following 12 months.''

* This guy is obviously a latent FlyerTalker.

If you follow the link, the story about Hardin is on page 6. He's also invented a device that refills travel-size toothpaste tubes for 60 cents. Maybe someday he'll join FT as ToothPaste4Free.

Shame the article got the qualifications for CP wrong though, otherwise that'd be pretty good publicity for SWA.

He flew back and forth to Birmingham for no good reason except to make it to the 100 flight mark.* "

* This guy is obviously a latent FlyerTalker.



Props to him for the 100 segments. ^

But something tells me he'd be slapping himself in the forehead when he finds out about the magic behind a RR Visa and partner credits. :eek:

This article hits pretty close to home. We live in the same suburb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brentwood,_Tennessee), and on Wednesday, I will be flying down to Birmingham for 25 minutes in order to maintain A-List.

The flights back are usually pretty interesting, with between 20 and 100 thrus thanks to the Wright Amendment. I wonder if service to BHM will be discontinued once Wright has been fully repealed.

I am sure many of us have had mileage runs. I did the DAL-AUS back and forth for 6 or 7 RTs in a day when fares were $29 (or was than $19) 2 years ago - and I think got 2 credits per OW flight. Also did the Million Mile run with Global Pass 6-7 years ago to Central/South America.

I did "mileage runs" weekly for about 6 years: $29+tax flights earning 2 credits each, sometimes more than 2. Those were the days, when regular flights that you'd take anyway earned more in benefits than they cost!