Last month, Southwest announced that it would be launching a debit card. Details were limited, but we managed to find a landing page that contained some card details, such as the welcome bonus and earning rates. Based on those limited features, the card didn’t seem very interesting.
The Southwest debit card is now available for applications. Along with that, full details of the card’s features are now available and it turns out that the card is a little more compelling than it initially appeared.
Southwest Debit Card Features
You can apply for the Southwest debit card here. Here’s a full list of the card’s features:
Earning rates
- 1 point per $1 spent
- Southwest purchases
- Dining
- Subscriptions (including utilities and streaming services)
- 1 point per $2 spent
- All other eligible spending
Sign-up bonus
- 2,500 bonus Rapid Rewards points after spending $100 and having two recurring deposits within the first 90 days
Monthly fee
- $6.99, waived if you maintain a minimum monthly balance of $2,500
Other features
- Annual spend bonus:
- Spend $5,000-$9,999.99 & earn 2,500 bonus points
- Spend $10,000-$14,999.99 & earn 5,000 bonus points
- Spend $15,000+ & earn 7,500 bonus points
- 20% off promotion code – awarded every January
- $35 statement credit each calendar year for Southwest purchases – excludes Upgraded Boarding and inflight purchases
- 7,500 bonus Companion Pass qualifying points each calendar year – awarded by January 31 each year or within 30 days of account opening
- All points earned are Companion Pass eligible – this includes points earned from the sign-up bonus and the annual spend bonus
- No ATM surcharges when using Cirrus network
Quick Thoughts
When the card was first announced, this was what we knew about the card:
- Have a 2,500 Rapid Rewards point welcome bonus after you have two recurring deposits and spend $100 in the first 90 days
- Earn up to 7,500 bonus points per cardmember anniversary (rather than calendar year) based on your annual spend
- Earn 1 Rapid Rewards point per dollar on:
- Southwest Airlines purchases
- Dining
- Subscriptions
- Earn 1 Rapid Rewards point per $2 dollars on:
- Everything else
Those limited details initially made the card seem underwhelming, but the full card details make it somewhat interesting.
For starters, you get 7,500 Companion Pass qualifying points each year. Note that these aren’t redeemable Rapid Rewards points; instead, they simply contribute towards the 135,000 qualifying points needed each calendar year to earn a Southwest Companion Pass. Although that’s only 5.55% of the points needed to earn a Companion Pass, it could be a useful boost, especially if you get towards the end of the year and find yourself falling short. If you were only ~7,500 qualifying points away from earning a Companion Pass, you could apply for the debit card and voilà – you get to the 135,000 point threshold with ease. If that’s your plan, bear in mind that these qualifying points can take up to 30 days to be awarded after opening an account, so it might not work if getting the card in December.
You also earn 2,500 bonus Rapid Rewards points when signing up for the card and spending $100 and getting two recurring deposits in the first 90 days. Those points are also Companion Pass qualifying, so that’s a total of 10,000 Companion Pass qualifying points when also accounting for the 7,500 aforementioned points. Those 2,500 Rapid Rewards points will be awarded within 8 weeks after the 91st day of opening your account, so it sounds like those won’t be earned until February 2026 at the earliest, meaning you won’t be able to have those count towards the 2025 Companion Pass qualifying year.
The $6.99 monthly fee seems high, but at least there’s the ability to have the fee waived by keeping an average of $2,500 on deposit each month. There is a potential opportunity cost to that, but not so much if you’d otherwise have been leaving it in your checking account earning 0.01% interest.
The big spend bonuses aren’t too stringent. If you spend at the exact $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 thresholds to earn 2,500, 5,000, or 7,500 bonus Rapid Rewards points respectively, you’re effectively earning 0.5 bonus points per dollar. That makes the card’s total potential earning rates 1.5x for the 1x spending categories or 1x for the 0.5x categories. That’s still far from amazing, but it could be useful for some people who otherwise have no option for earning Southwest points through spend.
There are a couple of unexpected benefits. Getting a coupon code for 20% off each year could save you a decent amount of money. Meanwhile getting a $35 statement credit on Southwest purchases shouldn’t be hard to max out.
In fact, those benefits alone could easily offset a full year’s worth of monthly fees. At $6.99 per month, you’re looking at spending $83.88 on annual fees over the course of a calendar year. If you value that $35 benefit as good as cash, that reduces the net fee to $48.88. If the 20% discount can be used on a flight costing $250+, your savings will offset the rest of the monthly fees paid. In reality, the flight spend would probably need to be closer to $275-$300 as the discount will only apply to the base fare, not taxes and fees.
This Southwest debit card still isn’t very compelling for someone eligible for a Southwest credit card given those cards’ benefits and superior earning potential. However, for someone who’s over 5/24 (and thus can’t get a Southwest card or an Ultimate Rewards-earning card that can be transferred to Southwest), having the opportunity to earn Rapid Rewards points and Companion Pass qualifying points through spend with no credit check could be appealing. It could also be worthwhile for someone who needs a (somewhat) quick boost of 7,500 Companion Pass qualifying points towards the end of the year and/or someone who can generate a lot of debit card spending where credit cards aren’t accepted.
Applying for this card is most certainly not a no-brainer. However, I am pleasantly surprised by the suite of benefits and features on the card that can provide value for the right person.
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Wait for Delta’s in 2 years when they partner with Greenlight. Bozos over there don’t understand how card economics work. The mongrel in charge that doesn’t know anything about loyalty will just do because others do. Derp
Does this count against 5/24?
No – because it’s a debit card rather than a credit card, there’s no credit check and it won’t report to your credit.
If you have both the credit and debit card, will you get the companion pass boost from both cards? 10k for the credit plus 7.5k for the debit? As someone who signed up for the 100k personal card offer last month, I’m trying to figure out how to get the rest of the way for a 2026-27 companion pass, so this could be very interesting.
I haven’t seen anything in the terms of the debit card – nor the terms for the Companion Pass – that state that you can’t receive both.
Very cool, thanks. I’ll give it a shot