m907

I hadn't even considered putting Southwest purchases on the Platinum, but you're right that that's a better return. I'll have to do that from now on.

synergistic

Sadly, our Platinum sits mostly unused otherwise - earning 120pts every domestic we take. Since our six month gas & groceries promo expired, we've only used it for PayPal, Saks, and the taxes and fees for our one upcoming international trip. We'll keep it, even with the increased fee, mostly for the Centurion access. Not sure how the benefits will shake out long term, but it's currently still a net win for us.

NoStressHere

Help me understand the "buy CPQP" thing.

FYI - we take at least a half dozen flights a year. Hard to say with all the changes in the past year+.

synergistic

I hope I remembered to put buy in quotes, that's definitely not good terminology. But that is effectively what you do when you earn partner points. I do a LOT of this. There are usually a handful of high value options on the shopping mall - cheap trials, flowers, magazines. Maybe you'll get lucky and see a 10x when you'd been planning on replacing your fridge. Hotels are the other high value partners - both Rocketmiles and Southwest hotels offer, basically, 'room plus points' packages at (obviously) inflated rates. My work travel in the land of cheap motels makes this incredibly easy for me - that isn't the case for everyone, but for folks that would highly value the CP, it might be worth the hassle. I don't know what my actual average cost per point is - I don't try to guess at how much I'd have spent on flowers without the points - but 2c is a reasonable approximation.

I sometimes consider giving up on 5/24 completely and just earning 125k points this way every time. When you value CPQP at 2c, though, that makes a 65k signup bonus worth $1300 - how many churnable cards would I have to run through to get that? What other Chase bonuses would I miss with lol/24? Do I really want to go back to that? 5/24 sure does keep it simpler.

darthbimmer

I've been a Southwest FF for 8-9 years and have churned through a half dozen or so SW affiliated credit cards. Here's my approach:

1. I don't regard CCs as a shortcut to status as much as a boost to help achieve it. Much of my status comes from flying paid flights on Southwest. CCs help put me over the top.
   
   
2. Southwest has two different tracks for FF status. The track that's most like legacy FF status, with the A List and A List Preferred tiers, is based on Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs). TQPs are rare to earn outside of paid flights. Companion Pass is based on Companion Pass Qualifying Points (CPQPs), which include CC spend, CC bonuses, and a variety of partner bonuses. CCs can help you get CP. They will barely help you get A/A+.
   
   
3. I've gotten to A+ status most of the past 9 years by paid flights. (There's barely any other way.) It's 70k TQP. Earning 70k CPQP along with that is not enough to earn CP-- not even close, as CP requires 125k CPQP. That's where a CC sign-up bonus makes a big difference. If I earn, say, 72k CPQP from flights and 4k from partners, a 50k sign-up bonus plus points from monthly spend puts me easily over the 125k level.

Exiled in Express

Looking at just earn on spend none of the Southwest branded cards earn more than 2 points per dollar on Southwest spend. With the latest revaluation, 80 points per dollar redemption, a Southwest point is worth about 1.3 cents. Can you find a card that give more value than 2.6% on Southwest purchases? Yes, there are several. I personally use either the Costco Visa as that is 3% in cash back or the Hyatt Visa for 2 Hyatt points on air travel. I put the value of a Hyatt point at a little over 2 cents which is higher than some but it works for my patterns.

The Southwest card really only make sense for those interested in the CP bump.

NoStressHere

FYI - those trying to meet the spend to get bonus and CP - paying property taxes and income taxes/witholding using the card is an option. You will pay about 1.8% to do it, but if it gets you over the top, it is worth it.

ryanmcv

The Southwest Performance Business card earns 3 points per dollar on Southwest spend.

ZonaFlyer

As to which WN card, I think the Priority is the only one that makes sense unless you qualify for the business ones. The $149 annual fee is offset by the $75 credit and 7500 anniversary points which are worth more than $75. The early boarding reimbursement is fine if you don't have other ways of boarding early through status or family boarding.

The plus card only has anniversary points that are not worth as much as the annual fee.

NoStressHere

We will always get the premium card. Always.

flyer4512

In our case we switch off every 2 years getting cards while the other person resets to 0/24.

Where can I spend $750 and earn about 60K CPQP Southwest points ?

Even if I wanted to pay for a hotel where we travel the best I see is spend like $150 and earn 2K points, most say you earn 1 point per $.

Flower redemptions are a joke, I can get 50 nice roses at Costco that would cost about $400 at FTD for $45, even at VTtines day they are only ~$60

https://www.costco.com/roses.html

Part of the fun for us in this game ( we still have millions of points/miles in stock) is not spending a dime ( besides a small AF here and there) to get the points/miles.

That being said I don't see anyplace I can spend $750 and earn 60K CPQP so I'm all ears.

flyer4512

I pay property taxes in 3 cities in 2 different states and the lowest CC Fee is 2.50%.

IMO if you have the $$ to float gift cards work the best as they are free, several times we have had over $10K in Costco gift cards laying around.

We spend a lot at Costco and they also have gift cards to restaurants we like at 75% of cost.

Both our cars use premium so the gas savings is quite a bit as local stations have a big upcharge to premium.

synergistic

I posted above in more detail, but when you use the shopping portal or the Southwest hotel portal, you're essentially buying qualifying points. 2cpp is pretty easy to come by, but you have to fully value the thing you're purchasing or the hotel stay - though there is a $100 Motley Fool subscription that earns 5400pts right now. Limit one, of course - but the hotel stays are repeatable.

Paying 2c per CPQP might be a dealbreaker if you have millions of points - hard to value the redeemable side very highly at that point. I burn almost as fast as I earn, plus I book cash flights - the redeemable points are legitimately worth 1.4c to me, so I'm only paying a .6c premium towards the companion pass.


Edit: oh, on the hotel portal, check to see if any of the ones that aren't pitiful have a 'boost' offering. It lets you 'buy' extra points, often for around 2c a point.

flyer4512

Unless I'm wrong 2cpp means 65k points would cost $1300

Even if you could buy 10 Motley fool subscriptions it's only 54K CPQP and it would cost $1000

I just don't see where you are getting 65k CPQP for $750 and just as important in a timely manner ( i usually get CP for 23 months via credit cards) to get full value.

You must be seeing some of those 10K hotel point deals that I'm not seeing and those hotels would also have to cost ~ $100 per night.

For example I see 4000 points at Bellagio but the room is $400 plus tax

https://www.rocketmiles.com/search?q...&sort=featured

synergistic

2cpp does mean $1300 out of pocket - but I value redeemable miles at ~1.4c. That means I'm paying a premium of .6cpp towards the companion pass - that's ~$400 on 65k points. The $750 is the premium you'd pay if you 'bought' the whole 125k as partner points. You can't buy just the companion qualifying part, partner points are all redeemable too

When you burn through as many points as you earn, redeemable points are as good as cash. I totally get why they aren't as valuable to you - but then why waste a slot on them? Spend what you've got, they'll only ever devalue.


Edit: I haven't had much luck finding the high ticket ones - the hotels I book are usually 1000pts/nt, but as you complete the transaction there are multipliers available for thousands more. Not sure how Rocketmiles prices theirs but I know they do it as well.

As for timeliness... A holiday stay checking out in 2022 might work, but I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk it. I've been pretty lucky and haven't had to top off all that much, so it was easy to do within driving distance and quickly.