Originally Posted by
IonBlade
My thinking was that the $700 isn't ideal, but it's not a *total* loss in that it still converts over to 25K points, which seems to be worth around $400 in ticket value, spot checking various fares in both points and cash. Since the spend would earn me the companion pass, the $700 spend today banks me $800 worth of fares where I bring a companion along. As long as I would book at least $700 worth of combined fares next year without the CP (definitely the case with 2 trips I have planned), then this is a net zero spend; I'm just pre-paying the fares in points instead of buying them on-demand in dollars, then any travel on top of that is icing on the cake.
(On having the friend gift the additional 5K Marriott Points, Marriott has a limit of 50K purchased miles per year per account, but there doesn't seem to be a limit on received gift miles. They only allow point conversion in 30K or 70K chunks, and you get a few more SW RR points per Marriott point at the higher conversion amount. Since I have 15,800 @ Marriott already, I need another 54,200 to get to the 70K conversion tier, and I can only purchase 50K a year, so the other 5 has to come from a gifted account.)
Good luck, hopefully you don't buy those points, etc and still miss CP as you have 16 days. When totaling things up for CP don't forget the $99 AF and that 4 companion fights will cost $45 and for the trips you have planned you can only add a companion if there is an available seat.
If I was in your position I would get the 2 other SW credit cards now and get CP for almost 2 years for $198 and avoid the expenses and headaches.
Originally Posted by
toomanybooks
If you have any way to put extra spend on WN Visa for WN gift cards you can use over next few months, those give you double points. Or prepay insurance, health club fees, gas/electric/phone, etc. Buy a few hundred dollars' worth of non-perishables/freezeables at grocery store. Amazon gift cards, restaurant gift cards, iTunes cards, etc. Buy office supplies, whatever. Ask friends or relatives if you can buy stuff for them and get reimbursed.
If you try the above strategy MAKE SURE the purchases get on the card a few days before it closes AND that the card closes in time that the points transfer from Chase to SW BEFORE 1/1/2016.
Given you have 16 days from today to make that happen I'm guessing it may be difficult if not impossible