Money Management
Southwest Airlines Unveils Accelerated A-List Status Promotion
Southwest is bringing back a popular promotion to help passengers achieve coveted A-List status — including a new option.
About the promotion:
For a limited time, Southwest Rapid Rewards members can work their way up to A-List and A-List Preferred status more quickly via a few different options. First, Rapid Rewards customers who book qualifying flights and travel between now and November 30th can earn double tier qualifying points. What’s more, through November 30th, reward travel will also count toward tier status segment requirements.
Elsewhere, those with Southwest’s co-branded credit cards can also accelerate their tier credit earnings. Between September 1st and November 30th, those with Southwest Rapid Rewards credit cards can earn 2,000 tier qualifying points for every $5,000 in purchases made using their card. This applies to the Rapid Rewards Priority, Premier, and Plus cards — all of which are issued by Chase. Notably, these bonus points come in addition to the tier qualifying points cardholders are already able to earn.
Lastly, Southwest will enable Rapid Rewards customers to earn tier qualifying points on purchases from partners for the first time. This includes Rapid Rewards car rentals, hotel bookings, and more. As Southwest explains, every base point earned on these qualifying purchases now through November 30th will count as one tier qualifying point. This offer is capped at a total of 5,000 tier qualifying points.
For these promotions, members will need to register on the Southwest site.
Other Southwest news:
This promotion comes as Southwest recently announced a major incoming upheaval. Last month, the airline revealed that it would be doing away with its long-held open seating policy and will introduce reserved seating instead. However, according to Southwest, this decision was made after research showed that the majority of passengers preferred the reserved seating model and that, among those travelers who had stopped flying the carrier in favor of a competitor, Southwest’s open seating feature was cited as a top reason for the switch.
What they’re saying:
Announcing the return of this promotion, Southwest Airlines’ VP and Chief Product Officer Jonathan Clarkson said, “We’re bringing back this popular promotion to give our Rapid Rewards Members an extra boost to reach our coveted A-List and A-List Preferred tier status faster, so they can take advantage of all the benefits that our Rapid Rewards program has to offer, such as earlier boarding, boosted points, free same-day standby, and same-day change.” Clarkson added, “A-List Preferred Members can enjoy all the same benefits plus free WiFi, and premium drinks.”
My thoughts:
With A-List status, Southwest flyers can enjoy priority boarding among a host of other perks. For me, that’d be reason enough to try to earn it through this promotion if it didn’t mean going too far out of your way. Then again, with this status lasting through December 2025 and Southwest potentially changing their boarding procedures by then, this status might not be quite as exciting as it once was. Still, if you’re flying Southwest anyway, you might as well register for this promotion while it’s available.
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