Hidden Southwest promo for 20% off award flights within 14 days

Southwest Airlines has a targeted promotion that I think is targeted to cardmembers, but if you’ve never logged into your Southwest Rapid Rewards account in a mobile browser, you probably wouldn’t know it existed. Doctor of Credit reported this last month and apparently this promotion was also around last year, but somehow I missed it. We just used one of our two promo codes to save 20% off on three award tickets. In my case, that only meant a savings of about 2,600 points, but if you have to book travel close to departure I imagine this could make a sizable difference for you.

The Deal

• Southwest Airlines has a targeted promotion available for 20% off award flights booked within 14 days of travel. This is easiest to find when clicking “offers” from a mobile browser or the link below and logging in to your account.
• Direct link to this deal

Key Terms

• 20 percent promotion code savings valid for one-way or round trip Wanna Get Away®, Wanna Get Away plus®, Anytime, and Business Select® fares booked with Rapid Rewards points on Southwest.com® from January 12, 2024 through January 11, 2025 11:59 pm Central Time (the “Booking Period”) and flown within 14 days of the date on which you book your ticket (“Travel Period”).
• Promotion code savings is applied before government taxes and fees.
• Enter your unique promotion code in the Promo Code box when booking during the Booking Period.
• If you have entered your single-use promotion code in the Promo Code box on Southwest.com, then while selecting your flights, savings in the base fare will be visible as a strike-through of the original fare.
• After selecting your flights, savings are reflected in the base fare when entering your single-use promotion code in the Promo Code box on Southwest.com when booking during the Booking Period for travel during the Travel Period.
• Please note that the Department of Transportation (DOT) requires advertised fares to include all government taxes and fees, however this promotion code savings applies to the base fare only.
• Discount is valid on new reservations only.
• Discount will apply only for flights booked within the Booking Period for travel flown within the Travel Period.
• If one direction of the trip is outside the Travel Period and one is within the Travel Period, only the portion of travel falling within the Travel Period will be discounted.
• Changes made to the itinerary after purchase will eliminate qualifications for this promotion and will result in forfeiture of any promotion code savings.
• The discount is only valid with the provided promotion code and is not combinable with other promotion codes or fares.
• All reward travel is subject to taxes, fees, and other government or airport-imposed charges of at least $5.60 per one-way trip. Applicable taxes, fees, and other government or airport-imposed charges can vary significantly based on your arrival and departure destination.
• The payment of any taxes, fees, and other government or airport-imposed charges is the responsibility of the Passenger and must be paid at the time reward travel is booked with a credit card, travel fund, or Southwest gift card
• See your offer for full terms

Quick Thoughts

As noted at the top, this promotion is kind of hidden. I’m used to logging in on desktop and going to the “promotions” section to look for promotions, but these promo codes are not found there.

I was booking a flight from my wife’s Southwest Airlines mobile app and I saw a dot on the “offers” tab at the bottom that seemed to indicate the presence of a new offer.

One of the offers under the tab said something about an “Exclusive Cardmember promo code” being available.

That brought me to a mobile browser to log in and sure enough there were two promo codes for 20% off reward travel. Here’s what it looks like after clicking through the link under “the deal” and logging into the mobile site in a desktop browser:

I never would have known that these promo codes existed!

There actually is a way to find these on desktop, but I’d have never found them. You have to log in to your account and go to the “Payment” tab.

Then if you scroll down past the saved credit cards and flight credits, you will find these promo codes if eligible. I was surprised to see that she had a couple of codes that expired just recently — we’ve had a couple of situations over the last year where these would have come in handy if I realized we had them!

The catch of course is that travel must occur within 14 days of the booking date. These codes are only good for close-in travel — and of course booking Southwest for close-in travel is usually not a good deal since award prices are tied to cash prices.

That said, if you have to book a flight close to departure (sometimes life happens and you have to book a last-minute flight), the chance to save 20% could tip the balance toward Southwest in the right circumstances.

I just used one of  these codes on an inter-island Hawaii flight that I’d been dragging my feet on booking and sure enough we’re within 14 days of departure. In this case, it was just procrastination that led to booking so late in the game, and inter-island Hawaii flights are very cheap, but nonetheless I saved 2,592 points over 3 passengers (my wife has a Companion Pass, so she only needs to pay for tickets for herself and our sons and then she adds me as the companion). I was happy to see that the discount applied to all travelers on her reservation — in some cases, that could be a significant savings.

Again, the requirement to book close-in travel in order to use these limits their utility, but now I know that if we run into a situation where we need to book a last minute flight, we could save 20% on a Southwest award. That’s a tool I’ll be happy to keep in my belt whether I use it or not.

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