Southwest offers lukewarm Promotional Companion Pass offer

Southwest is out with its latest offer for a promotional Companion Pass. This offer looks exciting at first glance, but feels pretty niche and kind of lame when you dig into the details.

The Deal

• Southwest Airlines is offering a promotional Companion Pass when you register, book one round trip or two one-way flights by 4/5/23 and travel by 5/24/23. The promotional Companion Pass will only be valid for travel from 8/15/23 – 9/30/23.
• Direct link to this deal

Key Terms

• Qualifying flights must be booked after you register, between April 3-5, 2023.
• You must register for this promotion, then book one round trip or two one-way qualifying Southwest® flights between 8:00 a.m. CDT on April 3, 2023 and 11:59 p.m. CDT on April 5, 2023 for travel from April 3, 2023 to May 24, 2023 (the “Promotion Period”), and fly during the Promotion Period to earn a promotional Companion Pass® valid for use between August 15, 2023 and September 30, 2023.
• Once you qualify for promotional Companion Pass (meaning you registered, booked, and traveled on a qualifying round trip or two one-way flight(s) during the applicable dates specified in promotion terms and conditions) Southwest will send an email within 10 days that lets you know you qualified and includes information on next steps and how to designate and utilize the promotional Companion Pass.
• You’ll be able to designate a Companion after the promotional Companion Pass is awarded to your account (August 15, 2023).
• After the promotional Companion Pass has been awarded to your account (August 15, 2023), and you’ve designated your Companion, you can book your Companion’s reservation (subject to flight capacity and availability at the time of booking the promotional Companion Pass).
• A qualifying one-way flight for this promotion is a one-way revenue flight on Southwest Airlines from an origin city to a destination city, including any intermediate stops and/or connections on Southwest Airlines.
• A qualifying round trip flight for this promotion is a round trip revenue flight on Southwest Airlines from an origin city to a destination city and back to the originating airport or carrier-recognized co-terminal.
• Valid on new reservations booked within the Promotion Period only. Travel booked or flown prior to registration for this promotion is not eligible for this promotional Companion Pass offer.
• Companion Pass, charter flights, reward and group travel, and Southwest Vacations® packages do not qualify as one-way or round trip revenue flights for this promotion.
• Changes made to any itinerary after purchase of a one-way or round trip revenue flight may eliminate qualification for this promotion. 
• See promo page for full terms and FAQs

Quick Thoughts

This offer looks pretty cool at first glance, though I can’t help but feel like it’s a pretty niche scenario where this moves the needle much. Furthermore, though Ben at One Mile at a Time calls it “awesome”, I would respectfully disagree and call this the lamest promotional Companion Pass offer we’ve seen — and potentially a concerning sign from Southwest about the future of the Companion Pass.

Here’s why I think it’s lame:

• You have less than 72hrs to register first and then book one round trip or two one ways that qualify for the offer. Previously booked travel does not qualify.
• Then, you need to complete those flights within the next ~7 weeks. Realistically, any flights you already have booked during at least the first 2 weeks of that window are now more expensive than they were before, so you’d need to cancel and rebook at a higher price to trigger this offer (so figure in whether you stand to save more money during the promo pass period than the money you stand to overpay if you’re cancelling and rebooking).
• The round trip or two one-ways must be revenue fares. Award tickets do not count to earn the promotional pass.
• The promotional pass is only valid for about 6 weeks — from August 15th to September 30, 2023, which is traditionally a low-demand period as kids are back in school and it is hurricane season in the Caribbean.
• You can not name a companion or book their seat until August 15, 2023 (a hack for this to come in a minute, but it is inconvenient)
• The promotional Companion Pass is not valid on award flights. It will be a Buy One, Get One on revenue fares only.

That last bullet point concerns me the most. Is Southwest considering making the full-fledged Companion Pass valid only on revenue fares? That thought would have sounded preposterous to me yesterday, but I look at this promotion and I can’t help but think that there are enough natural restrictions built in to not have needed to restrict the promotional pass further. The promo pass is only valid for 6 weeks and the qualifications in terms of registering, booking, and traveling to trigger it are fairly restrictive. Then add in natural limitations like the school calendar and weather at that time of year and I am just surprised that Southwest felt the need to restrict use even further so strongly as to build out the IT to treat this Companion Pass differently than other existing Companion Passes (which to my recollection have all always been valid on both revenue fares and award tickets).

Update: Turns out that this pass could be applied to award fares and the confusion was due to a very poorly-worded graphic on the landing page for the promo.

To be clear, I am not surprised that you need to book and fly on revenue flights to earn this promotional Companion Pass. That’s been a requirement when they’ve run these deals before.

If you earn the pass, here’s how to secure a seat now for your companion

If you get the temporary pass, one of the key annoyances here is that you will not be able to name a Companion or book their seat until August 15, 2023. Unfortunately, having to wait to book their seat until 8/15 means that whatever flight(s) you’ve booked for yourself for travel during that window may be sold out by August 15th, which would prevent you from adding your companion to your existing reservation.

There are two simple solutions for that. Either of them relies on locking up a seat on the flight(s) you are booking for travel during the window of the promotional Companion Pass, then later cancelling that seat and re-booking them as your Companion.

First, if you have a fair number of Southwest Rapid Rewards points, just make a separate reservation for your friend now (on those flights you’re planning between 8/15 and 9/30). That will lock up a seat for them now. Then, after you’ve named your companion, simply cancel the award seat you’ve booked for them (points get redeposited in your Southwest account without penalty) and even if the flight had been sold out, since Southwest doesn’t oversell flights, that seat should become available immediately for you to re-add that person as your Companion for just the taxes & fees. This solution means typing up an extra quantity of Rapid Rewards points in these placeholder reservations, but it ensures that you should be able to get your companion on those flights.

The alternative would be to book a full “Anytime” or “Business Select” refundable fare for your friend now — again, locking up a seat on the plane — and then do the same as above, cancelling it for a refund (make sure you choose to be refunded to your card instead of with a credit) and re-adding them as a companion. This solution doesn’t tie up your points, but it does tie up cash.

Bottom line

If by chance you can take advantage of the ability to register and book travel during the window (perhaps so you can mattress run a cheap Hyatt property?), this may be worth it. I have plans to be in Las Vegas during this travel window and I briefly considered booking a round trip same-day turn to Los Angeles / Long Beach, but then I realized that the promotional pass can’t be used on award tickets and I immediately lost interest. I hope this is a temporary thing for this one promotion and not a sign of things to come from Southwest. Truth be told, I would still be very surprised if Southwest stopped allowing the full-fledged Companion Pass to be used on award tickets….here’s hoping they don’t surprise me.

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