Companion pass points
 

Do points earned from new credit card sign up bonuses count toward companion pass?

DISCLAIMER - I and many others will quickly add comments. Based on past experience, first time posters often never return. LOL!

Anyways, the above answer is correct. But more important is to understand the timing. Points must be earned within the calendar year. And that year does not end EXACTLY on December 31st. It is all tied to when the charges hit he credit card, and the closing date of your card. No exceptions.

VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT.

And you can search for some information out there, including on the first page of this board: you can no longer get sign-up bonuses from two personal cards. You can get it from one business and one personal card.

I promise I've been reading for hours and hours, but I am still confused. So...my friend just got approved for the SW business card (closing date November 15th for example). He needs to have ALL spend between December 15 to January 15 and get the 110000 point requirement to hit the Jan 15th closing date, then he will have CP for all of 2020 and 2021?

Or can he spend NOW, and as long as the 110000 points hit the RR account In January 2020?

In theory, which does not always match to reality with Chase computers (and life) in the first couple months. Sometimes they drop an extra statement on you. Sometimes there are errors (merchant inadvertently types in $5600 instead of $560 or $6000 instead of $3000) or accidental double-swipes. Sometime there is fraud. Sometimes people misadd. Sometimes a spouse uses the card unsuspectingly. Etc. The CP is triggered and it’s irreversible. We see this every year.

He can spend now below the signup-bonus level but anything that POSTS to his Southwest account in 2019 will not go towards CP. All 110k must POST in the same calendar year. So why spend now? Just makes you spend more in a couple months.

The absolute safest thing is not to spend a dime (except annual fee in the first month) until Jan 1.That’s my plan.

thank you.

The reason for spending now is because if he waits he will have to spend $5K from Jan 1-15! much easier to start beforehand.

Income tax. Property tax. 2% fee for those but worth it.

Insurance. Medical bills. Year-end charitable donations. Prepayment of utilities. Gift cards you are certain to spend (for groceries, home repair projects). It's not that hard if you can afford to prepay $5k of real expenses.

Not saying Chase would question this, but if they did, i think it would be hard to justify medical bills as a business expense.

Hard to work on your business if you're sick :-) . But seriously, do we have any evidence they've ever questioned to legitimacy of an expense on a business card ?

The go-to method of meeting spending goals is making estimated-tax payments. Seems those would be legitimate if you're a sole proprietor.

Banks prefer charges on business cards over personal cards since there are far fewer consumer protections on these transactions.

Giving them no incentive to question whether charges on business cards are legitimately business expenses ?

Chase sure was stingy about giving me my last RR Business card though; guy interviewed me for 15 minutes or so about my "business". Got an INK later with no hassle though.

The basic problem here IMO is people trying to press their advantage too far. Opening a WN card in early October so you can finish up the spend in early January and cinch the CP for 23.5 months is a great plan in theory... but as discussed above it's risky in practice. For folks who are still planning their play I suggest opening a card in, say, late November so you can cinch the CP by late February without worrying about getting all the timing perfect. Sure, you only get 22 months of CP instead of 23.5 but that's a still an enormous ROI... and with less risk.

Thanks for the info.

The only reason people are/were getting it in October is for the 80000 SUB, which I think is now back down to 70000.

Do you think all $5K spend from December 15-January 15 will count towards CP?

Oh, absolutely, they'll 100% be CP qualifying points. It would just be incredibly unfortunate if Chase dropped a statement on you at the end of December, and/or some innocent fat fingering had you earning towards a 2019 CP instead of 2020. Not saying it's likely, only that we've heard it all. We'd rather irritate you into caution than see you turn into another cautionary tale.