Southwest Companion Pass (+ Elevated Offer)

 Southwest has announced and begun to implement a lot of changes this year. 

As of May 28th, Southwest no longer allows free bags for all passengers and starting at the end of January 2026, Southwest will also start having assigned seats on flights. These changes have ruffled a lot of feathers; but I continue to be a loyal Southwest flyer and there's one reason why...

Southwest Companion Pass

What is Companion Pass? 

Southwest Companion Pass (often referred to as SW CP) is an earned benefit that allows you (as SW CP-holder) to add one guest to any booked flight for only the cost of taxes/fees (in the US this is $5.60 per one-way flight; international travel will vary).

You assign someone in your SW account as a companion and have the ability to change companions up to three times in a calendar year.

Your flight can be booked with cash, credits, or points. Once you book your flight, you can add your companion:

A companion pass is valid for the remainder of the year you qualify AND the entire year following. I'll hit more on this later, want you to understand that there is a timing component to getting the SW CP from a strategy standpoint.

For a family of four, like myself, this means that if both my husband and myself have our own companion passes, then our two kids fly free. We have used this to our advantage in the past year and a half we've had our SW CPs!

How to Earn Companion Pass?

There are a two ways to earn Companion Pass:

1. Fly 100 qualifying one-way flights in a calendar year.

2. Earn 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year.

We're going to focus on earning 135,000 points; because thanks to credit card sign up bonuses - this is TOTALLY achievable! What's even better, is that you get to use those points then to book free flights!!

Note: points transferred to Southwest, like your Chase points, do NOT count as qualifying points towards CP.

Traditional Two-Card Method

The "traditional" method of earning 135,000 points in a calendar year is to open one Southwest Business card and one Southwest Personal card and earn the sign up bonus for both cards within the same calendar year. There are several versions of the cards (for both personal and business). You CAN hold multiple business cards at the same time, but you CANNOT hold more than one personal SW hard at a time. 

Southwest automatically gives you an annual 10,000 points boost towards Companion Pass when you are a cardholder. Note: regardless of how many cards you hold, you only get one 10,000 points boost. Also, the 10,000 points boost only counts towards CP. It does not allow you to use these 10,000 points to book travel.

In addition, Southwest personal cards have a rule that you cannot earn a new sign up bonus on a personal card until it's been 24 months since your last SW Personal card sign up bonus. (This is important to keep in mind for long term strategy and repeat companion passes).

How to earn 135,000 points: 

• Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Personal card (lowest annual fee/lowest benefits) standard offer is to earn 50,000 points when you spend $1,000 in 3 months 
• Southwest Performance Business Card (highest annual fee/highest benefits) standard offer is 80,000 points when you spend $5,000 in 3 months.

From above, you would earn: 50,000pts + 1,000pts (for 1 point per dollar spent to hit the minimum spend) on the Personal Card and 80,000pts + 5,000pts (for 1 point per dollar spent to hit the minimum spend) on the Business Card, plus the 10,000 point boost for holding SW Cards. 

Adding these numbers up: 50,000 + 1,000 + 80,000 + 5,000 + 10,000 puts you at 146,000 points, which surpasses the 135,000 points needed to earn companion pass!

Keep in mind, that with Chase cards, when you hit a minimum spend, the sign up bonus points typically do not hit your account immediately. They hit at statement close. So if you hit a spend on the first of the month, but your statement closes on the 20th of the month, then you won't actually have those points in your account until at least the 20th of the month.

Timing of Earning Points

I mentioned above, that once your account hits 135,000 points, you earn a companion pass that is valid for the remainder of the year you qualify AND the entire year following. Therefore, it is CRITICAL to understand timing of when your points will hit, because it could make a difference of prolonging your SW CP.

So let's say you signed up for a SW card today and hit the minimum spent two months from now (September for the sake of this discussion). Immediately after you hit that signup bonus, you open a second SW card and hit that card's sign up bonus a month later (October in this example). That means that in October or November of this year, your SW account would have at least 135,000 points and earn you a Companion Pass for the remainder of 2025 AND all of 2026.

Pretty cool, right?

Buuuuuuut; if you had waited a few months, and strategically timed the opening of your cards and when you hit the minimum spend, you could have had all of the points hit your account in January 2026; and then you'd have earned SW CP for almost all of 2026 AND all of 2027! This is where timing and understanding when your points will hit is CRITICAL.

When we earned our SW CP's for 2024 and 2025; we starting opening SW cards in late October 2023. I very very carefully monitored the spending on those cards and once we were within $400 of the minimum spend we STOPPED using the card. Then I waited until January 2024, finished the remainder of the minimum spend requirement and boom, earned the CP, valid for almost two full years!

2-Person/3-Card Method

If your head is spinning from above, I'm going to warn you, this is even more advanced. However, the benefit is that if you need to earn two SW CPs, you can utilize the 3-Card Method so that you're opening one less card total (compared to above, where each person who wants a CP needs to open 2 cards).

The 3-card method utilizes referral points, which also count towards the needed 135K points for a Companion Pass. The easiest timing for all of this for the points to hit so that both people (player 1 and player 2) have companion passes is to start in January; but it technically can be done any time of year.

To use this method you need to pay attention to referral and sign up bonus offers, as both can and will change periodically!

Step 1: Player-1 needs to open a SW business card with an 80,000 pt sign up bonus minimum offer. Note, this is the SW Business Performance standard offer. Taking advantage of an elevated offer, such as 85K points would be more ideal.

Player-1 Point Status: from opening this card, Player 1 will earn: 80,000pts + 5,000 (from minimum spend) + 10,000pts (SW boost), putting them at 100,000 points. Which is 40,000 points short of a CP.

Step 2: Player-1 then refers Player-2 to a SW card. The referral bonus needs to be 20,000 points or higher, unless Player-1 opened an elevated 85K+ point card. (note: at the time of writing this post, the referral offer is 20,000 points, which is standard; but can drop).

Player-1 Point Status: 20,000pts from referral + 100,000 points from Step-1, putting Player 1 at 120,000 points (still shy of 135,000 required points)

Step 3: Player 2 hits the sign up bonus for their first card. Let's say it was the cheaper of the business card options, Premier Business, which has a standard offer of 60,000pts for $3,000 spend in 3 months.

Player-2 Point Status: 60,000pts + 3,000 (from the spend) + 10,000 point boost. Player-2 is at 73,000 points. Which is 62,000 points short of 135,000 needed.

Step 4: Player-1 refers Player-2 to a second SW card. Since Player-2 optioned a business card for their first card, this time Player 2 will open a personal card. Because Player-2 still needs 62,000 points, the standard offer for the lower tier personal card, Rapid Rewards Plus, isn't going to be enough. Player-2 will need to open a personal (or business card) that has a 60,000 point or greater sign up bonus. 

From this move, Player 2 would then have earned over 135,000 points to get their SW CP.

AND

Player 1, would earn another 20,000 points in referral, which gets them to 140,000 points, enough for them to also earn a companion pass!!

What about the current elevated Personal Card Offer??

Today, 7/24, Southwest announced an elevated 100,000 sign up bonus offer for all three of the personal cards. Earn 100,000 points by spending $4,000 in 5 months. This offer is valid through September 17, 2025.

This is a longer minimum spend period than normal, which is pretty great! However, if you're wanting to earn a companion pass with this offer and maximize how long you have the CP; I would wait until September to apply. That way your 5-month period to hit the minimum spend will end in Jan/Feb 2026. As long as you wait until then to complete the $4,000 minimum spend - then you'll earn:

100,000pt sign up bonus + 4,000pt spend + 10,000pt boost; which puts you at 114K points; just 21,000 points short of the 135,000k points needed for companion pass.

To find the additional 21K points needed, you could:

• Pay cash for Southwest flights; you'll earn miles for your flight distance and bonus points for shopping on Southwest with your SW card.
• Refer a friend/family member to the card
• You can refer from any southwest card to any other type of southwest card. The person opening a card from your referral doesn't have to open the same exact card as you!
• Earn additional points through Southwest Shopping Portal
• Earn additional points through strategic spend; here are the differences between the card options and ways your can earn more points by spending category!

The SW Rapid Rewards Plus Card has a $99 annual fee and similar additional points as SW Rapid Rewards Premier Card which has a $149 annual fee, but gets you (and up to 8 passengers on your reservation) a free checked bag, puts you in Group 5 boarding, allows you to select a seat within 48 hours of departure

• For additional points earn, this card gets:
• 3x points for every dollar spent on Southwest
• 2x points for every dollar spent at grocery stores and restaurants (up to $8K in a year)
• For the remainder of 2025:
• 2x points on Rapid Rewards hotels and car rental partners
• 2x points for local transit and rideshare
• 2x points for internet, cable, phone and streaming.
• 1x point on everything else

The SW Rapid Rewards Priority Card has a $229 annual fee, but gets you (and up to 8 passengers on your reservation) a free checked bag, puts you in Group 5 boarding, allows you to select a seat at booking

• For additional points earn, this card gets:
• 4x points for every dollar spent on Southwest
• 2x points for every dollar spent at grocery stores and restaurants
• For the remainder of 2025:
• 2x points on Rapid Rewards hotels and car rental partners
• 2x points for local transit and rideshare
• 2x points for internet, cable, phone and streaming.
• 1x point on everything else

I think this approach is worthwhile to consider getting this card while the offer is elevated if you want to earn a companion pass IF you have someone to refer to and it's definitely worth trying if you are unable to open a business card (you may qualify for a business and business card! Read here).

And if you don't care about the companion pass and just like flying Southwest, I still think this offer is a great one to take advantage of; especially with the recent changes like charged checked bags and assigned seats. Having a Southwest card could more than pay for it's self with those two benefits alone!

Remember, in order to earn a sign up bonus for a Southwest Personal card, it has to have been more then 24 months since you last earned a sign up bonus. If you already have a Southwest personal card and it's been more than 24 months, you could close your current card (read here on closing cards), wait 30 days, and apply for a new one to take advantage of this elevated offer!

Summary

That is A LOT!!! What do you think? Will you try for a companion pass?!

For any of the methods that require someone to open to cards, it's advised to open the business card first. This is to ensure that you can get approved for the business card and that your overall plan will succeed!

You can use the same link to apply for any of the Southwest cards! As always, I appreciate your support and utilizing my referral links! Be sure if you're viewing this in a Meta app, to open a new external web browser to complete your application, which protects your data and gives me credit!

If you're unsure, fill out my next card recommendation form, and I'll give you my two cents!

______________________________________

> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Revamped Chase Sapphire Reserve

 Yesterday I shared about Chase Sapphire Reserve's new big brother, or maybe we should say cousin since one is a personal card and one is a business card; the new Chase Sapphire Reserve Business. I can understand why that card isn't for a lot of people with such a high minimum spend AND high annual fee; but I do think the CSR is worth considering for a personal card if you don't currently have a Sapphire.

Today I'm going to break down the newly revamped CSR and it's benefits.

Chase Sapphire Reserve

Annual Fee: $795 (I know, this is super high, I'll speak to this below!)

Current Offer (elevated, meaning it's not the standard offer): Spend $5k in 3 months and earn 100,000 points plus $500 Chase Travel credit

Why I'd Consider This Card

Chase is the easiest bank to figure out credit card points and how you transfer them to partners to book free travel. Chase is the only bank that you can direct transfer points to Southwest AND United (no other banks directly transfer to either! Although there are creative ways to book United flights with other banks, through partner airlines (like Air Canada who is in the same air alliance)

You also need to hold a Chase "premium" card, in order to have the ability to transfer your points to travel partners. A "premium" card for Chase is basically a Chase card that has an annual fee. So having some type of Sapphire card is a must!

Off-Setting the Annual Fee

The signup offer and the benefits of this card can make it easy to offset the $795 annual, depending which of these you use. 

Note, the annual fee is typically charged within a month of you opening the card. It does not count towards the minimum spend for the sign up bonus.

• $500 Chase Travel Credit: this is part of the sign up bonus and gives you $500 to spend in Chase Travel portal. You can use this to book hotels, rental car, flights, etc.
• $300 ANNUAL travel credit: this doesn't have to be utilized in Chase travel portal; just charge anything travel related to your card and you'll get a credit on your next statement. (This benefit renews annually)

These two benefits above automatically have you break even with the annual fee cost. But here are additional benefits that help you get more value out of Sapphire Reserve card:

• Global Entry/TSA Precheck: $120 credit every 4 years; charge this card for your application and receive a statement credit
• Airport Lounge access for Sapphire Lounges and Priority Pass (good for you and 2 guests to get in free; you can pay for additional guests)
• Free Apple TV and Apple Music ($250 value if you use these)
• Doordash benefits: honestly these are kind of annoying to use; but you can get DashPass, which gives you $0 deliveries
• $300 in Stubhub credits annually; $150 every 6mo
• Earn 3x points on restaurants
• Earn 4x points on direct book hotels and flights

Summary

Honestly - I would take advantage of getting this card with it's elevated sign up offer now now and use the above benefits to offset the annual fee; then next year, once you've hit your year mark with the Sapphire Reserve, you can call the bank and request to downgrade from the Sapphire Reserve to the Preferred (read here about downgrading and closing cards). 

The Preferred only has a $95 Annual Fee and still allows you to keep your points and credit history, as well as allows you to transfer your points to travel partners. If you're charged the annual fee with Chase (like next summer), you have 30-40 days to call and downgrade and they'll refund you the fee!

If you can't accommodate a $795 fee right now, then I would go ahead and apply for the little sister card, which is the Chase Sapphire Preferred. I have several posts about why CSP is a great beginner card. Read here! 

You can use the same link to apply for either card! As always, I appreciate your support and utilizing my referral links! Be sure if you're viewing this in a Meta app, to open a new external web browser to complete your application, which protects your data and gives me credit!

If you're unsure, fill out my next card recommendation form, and I'll give you my two cents!

______________________________________

> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

The New Blue: Chase Sapphire Reserve Business Card

 I will admit, I totally blew the Sapphire Reserve Business card off when I first saw it come out on June 23, 2025. Sure, 200,000 points sounds AMAZING!!!!, but a $795 annual fee, then $30,000 spend to get them?! Ouch! No thanks!

The immediate thought I had was "why put $30K into one card's sign up bonus when that amount of money could be used to hit multiple new card's sign up bonuses?!"

This what where I started; but then when I started to consider which and how many cards we could get, I realized that there wasn't a guarantee of approval for all of those cards, nor a guarantee that their current sign up bonuses would still be available by the time we were ready to open the next card.

On top of that, obviously opening and managing just one card is a lot less work than trying to strategize and line out the opening of maybe 4-6 new cards. In fact, I realized that going for this offer could be beneficial in our long term strategy because it would allow us to take a break from needing/wanting to open multiple new cards, given that we'd have to put ALL of our spend on this card for several months to hit the minimum spend. 

The more I thought about, the more it actually did kind of make sense for us to get. YIKES! 

Unlike other Chase Sapphire or Business cards, the minimum spend on the current sign up offer is six months, not three. Really, that's the saving grace and reason why we got this card and can hit a $30K spend. Averaging that out, at $5k/month, our budget doesn't have us spending even that much money. However, going back to my post about knowing your routine spend AND planning ahead for bigger expenses, I knew that some of our large upcoming expenses (ski passes, a dental procedure (to be paid back with HSA funds), a sauna (a what?! Yes, my husband has been researching and saving for months and was finally ready to order. I told him, not without a new card first! ha), and our fall anniversary Singapore/Maldives trip), would definitely get us over the minimum spend when combined with our monthly expenses.

I also assumed that *now* is the highest offer the card is ever going to have and since we could, we should take advantage. Honestly, if this were an American Express offer, I don't know if I would have felt so strongly; but I will take ALL of the Chase points we can get since Chase is the only bank that partners with Hyatt. We LOVE Hyatt as a travel partners for their standard award pricing, ways to earn awards like free nights, and the ability to be gifted temporary elite status (with Guest of Honor awards).

So know you know, obviously, I just had to go for it!

Let's talk through the card and it's benefits to see if it may be a good fit for you.

Chase Sapphire Reserve Business Card

Annual Fee: $795 (I know - this is super high! I'll speak to this below)

Current (Elevated) Sign up Offer: 200,000pts for $30k spend in 6 months (I know, this is also super high. I spoke above why this works for our family right now).

Off-Setting the Annual Fee

The signup offer and the benefits of this card can make it easy to offset the $795 annual, depending which of these you use. The annual fee is typically charged within a month of you opening the card. It does not count towards the minimum spend for the sign up bonus.

Note these aren't all of the benefits, but these are what I personally assume are most universally useful:

• $300 ANNUAL travel credit: this doesn't have to be utilized in Chase travel portal; just charge anything travel related to your card and you'll get a credit on your next statement. (This benefit renews annually)
• Global Entry/TSA Precheck: $120 credit every 4 years; charge this card for your application and receive a credit
• Airport Lounge access for Sapphire Lounges and Priority Pass (good for you and 2 guests to get in free; you can pay for additional guests)
• Doordash benefits <honestly these are kind of annoying to use though; but you can get DashPass, which gives you free deliveries (valued at $120/yr), and then there's monthly benefits like $5 restaurant credit and (2) $10 non-restaurant credits
• $100 to Giftcards.com ($50 Jan-Jun and $50 Jul-Dec)
• Earn 4x points on directly booked hotels and flights

Offer Benefits that Some May Find Useful:

• $10/mo Lyft Credit and earn 4+x points on Lyft spend
• $200 Google Workspace
• $400 Ziprecruiter
• $500/yr (split $250 per Jan-Jun and $250 Jul-Dec) credit for The Edit: note this requires a 2-night stay and gives you complimentary benefits like free breakfast for 2, upgrades, $100 hotel credit; but from my searches so far, these tend to be REALLY expensive hotels, like $1,000/nt, which I will never be willing to pay cash for.

Why am I  even Suggesting this Card?

Honestly - I would (and did!) take advantage of getting this card with it's high elevated sign up offer now and use the above benefits to offset the annual fee. Then next year, once you've had the card for 12 months, I would plan to downgrade or close the account (assuming you can downgrade to an Ink, I'm not sure if we know right now). This is my own personal plan; I opened the card for the massive sign up bonus, but don't plan to hold this card long term.  

I figure, even if we only utilize the $300 travel credit, $5 doordash food credit/dash pass, $100 Gift card credit, and Lounges on the few occasions just my husband and I are flying (since we have two kids; or I pay for one kids as an extra guest); that's still valued at least $450 to help offset the $795 annual fee. I'll pay ~$345 net fee to get 200K Chase points!!! Mostly because I know for my family and our travel goals, how valuable Chase points are and how they can be hard to come by!

As a reminder: never close a card before you've held it for at least 12 months to keep in good-standing with the bank. If you're charged the annual fee, with Chase (like next summer after you've held the card for 12 mo), you have 30-40 days to call and downgrade and they'll refund you the fee!

So what do you think? Am I crazy, or did I make the right choice for us? I will say we've had the card close to a month and already made a big dent with our major one-time expenses!

I know this card isn't for everyone and definitely not everyone has a spend this high. But if you're like me and actually think you can make the card work for your household, I would SO appreciate if you utilized my referral link to open the card (reminder, if you're viewing this through a Meta app, please open an external browser to apply. This protects your data and gives me credit). If you're interested, but want more information on business cards as well as how to apply for them first, read here!

If you're unsure, fill out my next card recommendation form, and I'll give you my two cents!

______________________________________

> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

When to say Goodbye: Closing or Downgrading

This is a question I had asked A LOT! "So if you're continually opening new cards, do you just have a bazillion credit cards open?!" and the answer, generally, is a handful, but the real answer is no.

For as much thought as I put into the strategy of which cards myself (or my P2) should open; there's often an equal amount of strategy in which cards we should keep open and which are ready to be closed. This post will outline my thought process of determining when I close a card (or downgrade) and why.

Perhaps the most important rule to know about closing a credit card is that you should not close a credit card before you've held it for at least 12 months. Closing a card before the year mark, can put your relationship with the issuing bank in jeopardy AND you risk the bank taking back the points that you've earned. 

When to Close (or Downgrade) a Card

Here are the primary considerations I keep in mind when reviewing what cards "we" (myself or my husband/P2) are holding:

1. If the card has an annual fee; do the card's benefits that you're utilizing outweigh the cost of the annual fee?

Look at each card and confirm what the annual fee is. What benefits does that card offer you and which of those benefits have you actually used in the past year? How often do you use the card in general? If you were to add up the value of each benefit, how does that compare to the annual fee to hold the card?

Currently I have credit cards open that have annual fees ranging from $0 to $795 a year,  I already know that the $795 fee card, the new Sapphire Reserve Business, will NOT be kept in my wallet longer than it has too. Essentially I got the card to take advantage of a high sign up bonus, knowing that I won't benefit from holding this card long term.

However, there are other cards in my wallet, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, with a $95 annual fee (that can be offset with an annual $50 hotel credit and $10/mo doordash credit), that I will always hold. Even if I don't utilize those benefits, paying $95/year allows me to transfer points out of Chase to book directly with travel partners (instead of booking in the Chase portal); which is well worth the $95 when it comes to the savings I have to be able to book free travel with points.

My United Mileage Explorer card has a $95 annual fee (currently), but one of the primary benefits it offers is free checked bag for myself and one person on my reservation. With this benefit, if we fly roundtrip United once a year and check two bags; this card pays for itself. Not to mention, it also comes with 2 United Club passes.

Similarly, now with Southwest policy changes doing away with free checked bags, cardholders now get free checked bag for themselves, their companion (if applicable) and up to 8 people on their reservation. The cheapest Southwest card has a $69 annual fee - so if you fly SW solo, at least one round trip or 2-single flights a year, this card pays for itself! I just helped someone get this card because they specifically wanted a card to get free checked bags domestically. Remember... spend smarter, not more ;)

2. You want to get a sign up bonus for a card you already have.... and you can't hold two of the same card

This may be a little more intermediate... but there will be times when a great sign up offer comes out and you may already hold the exact same card. Sometimes you can get around this by closing (or downgrading - more below) your card just to turn around and open the same card. Example of this is the Chase Sapphire.

3. You're starting to get declined from banks with the message that you've been extended too much credit

Yep, this happens. It's happened to both Ben and I. Most specifically with Chase business cards. Once we started getting declined, I started closing out Chase business cards that we (one of us) held for more than 12 months, closing them 30 days apart so as not to arise suspicion. 

4. You're not using it

Why add more to your backburner mental than you need? If you have a card that's older than 12 months and you're not using it, even if it doesn't have an annual fee - there's no reason to keep it open! Keep in mind the smaller convenience benefits, like the free checked bags mentioned above, before deciding to close. 

5. Do you need to keep this card open to transfer points outside of the bank?

This really is geared to having a premium card open with Chase. For Chase, you need to have one of the following cards in order to have the ability to transfer your Chase points to travel partners:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred
• Chase Sapphire Reserve
• Chase Business Ink Preferred
• Chase Sapphire Reserve Business

Remember, transferring points to travel partners and booking travel directly (NOT in the portal), may often give you the best value/lowest point cost travel.

6. Should You keep this card open for referrals?

Referrals can be an easy way to earn a chunk of points without opening a new card. Sometimes it's worth keeping a card open if you have friends/family/significant other who plan to open that card.

What Next? 

Close vs Downgrade

Several cards, especially those with annual fees, may have the option to downgrade to a lower tier card. Lower tier cards often have lower (or no) annua fee, but also lower (or no) useful benefits.

So why would you even downgrade then?!

Downgrading a card is may be the ideal option instead of closing because:

• It lets you keep your points!
• Often times, when you close a card, if you don't have another card or means to move the points; you'll lose them
• If it's a co-branded card (like a Chase Southwest Card or a Hilton American Express; ie a bank/hotel or airline card) you will not lose your points.
• If it's a bank card (like a Chase Sapphire Preferred or an American Express Gold card): if you're closing a card, you have the option to move your points to another card you may already hold from the same bank OR if you downgrade a card, the points will stay with the new downgraded version
• Credit Score
• Remember from this post, Credit History (or average length of credit) makes up 15% of your credit score. If you close your oldest credit card, then depending on what other cards you hold and when you opened them; closing may impact your credit score
• Also from the same post, Credit Utilization accounts for 30% of your credit score. If you're considering closing a credit card that has a large limit, this will then lower your total amount of credit extended, which could in turn, impact your credit score.

Downgrade Options

Okay, so you're intrigued to consider downgrading, but how do you even know if that's an option?!

For one, you can call the bank and ask. I would call and say something along the lines of: "I've realized I'm not longer using this card's benefits fully and I'm wondering if there's a lower tier/lower annual fee card that I could downgrade to instead?"

Here are some common downgrades for popular cards:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve > downgrade to Chase Sapphire Preferred: this allows you to keep your points and your ability to transfer points out of Chase to travel partners, but also lowers the annual fee from $795 (previously $550 prior to June 2025), down to $95/year.

• Chase Sapphire Preferred > downgrade to Chase Freedom that earns ultimate rewards ($0 annual fee). *Remember* you need a Chase premium card to transfer points. BUT on reason you may want to downgrade you CSP, is from Item 2 above. You can potentially get rid of your Sapphire card, wait 30 days, and apply for a new Sapphire card to take advantage of a sign up bonus.
• Chase United Mileage Explorer > downgrade to United Gateway. I'm personally considering this move because the Mileage Explorer annual fee is increasing from $95/year to $150/year. Currently we generally only fly United once a year with having our Southwest Companion Passes. I would choose to downgrade this card to save on the annual fee, but to keep my credit history, since I've held this card since 2016.
• American Express Gold (Personal or Business) > while you can't downgrade to a card without an annual fee, there are lower-tier/lower annual fee cards you can downgrade to, being Green Card or the Business Green Rewards Card. 

Closing a Card

It's okay to close cards too! I personally prefer to close cards via the bank's secure messaging or chat feature; that way 1. I don't have to talk on the phone to anyone and have them try to convince me otherwise. 2. I have written record of the date the card is closed.

Timing of Closing a Card

The most ideal time of closing a card with an annual fee is within 30 days of the annual fee hitting your account (as long as you've had the card open 12 months). This way, you (hopefully) utilized the entire year of benefits that you paid for. If you close within 30 days of the annual fee hitting, generally the bank will credit your account back the annual fee charge once you close.

You can close any card, any time of year (as long as it's been open 12 months), but you won't necessarily get back the annual fee, in which case it may be worth hanging on to the card and trying to utilize some benefits before next year's annual fee.

Summary

Okay, this post is WAY longer than I anticipated, but there's so much information to consider and know before closing a card. I hope this helps!

Remember the most important rule to know about closing a credit card is that you should not close a credit card before you've held it for at least 12 months. Closing a card before the year mark, can put your relationship with the issuing bank in jeopardy AND you risk the bank taking back the points that you've earned. 

If you still have questions or are uncertain about what to do with credit cards you currently hold; feel free to email or instant message and ask for another option!

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> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

To-Do Checklist after Receiving a New Card

A common question I get asked is how to keep it all straight. A lot of people hate the idea of having to manage multiple credit cards and get stressed about updating billing across multiple accounts on autopay. In this post, I'll share which expenses I update (and why), when we get a new card, in order to achieve the minimum spend quicker to earn that sign up bonus (hint: I don't update everything)

This is REALLY going to vary from household to household, depending what card you opened, what the minimum spend on the card is and how it aligns with your spending habits. My goal of this post is that it:

1. Helps break down the mental load and documents it so that it's not as overwhelming. 
2. Helps you consider your own budget, expenses, and consider how much of your time you actually need to put into updating autopayments in order to hit your next minimum spend.

So far this year I have opened one large (to us) minimum spend card and my P2 just opened the next large (to us) minimum spend card, where I really needed to be conscious about our spend strategy to hit the minimum spend in the time alloted. If you refer back to my last beginner post, I talk about knowing your budget and spending habits. From the list provided there, these are some of our common/reoccurring expenses as well as upcoming one-time costs:

Common Monthly Expenses: Childcare (including after-school care), groceries, internet, gas/electric utility, car insurance, dining out, sports/activities, beer/alcohol, prescriptions, cell phone streaming services (Spotify, Netflix, Disney, etc), Nuuly rental, coffee subscription, gas (for driving), therapy, etc

One-time/Less Frequent Expenses: These are costs you don't necessarily have every month, but are worth considering when looking ahead the next few months prior to opening a credit card, that may help you hit a minimum spend easier or quicker. Some of my households considerations are items like: Summer camp, taxes, car repair, home repair, large item purchase, medical/dental costs, car down payment, HOA, ski passes, travel, concert/sports tickets, birthdays, holidays, etc

To-Do Checklist after Receiving a New Card

When one of us opens a new card, this is the general list of accounts I update payment information on (ie add the new card to the account and set as default form of payment) to ensure we are putting our expenses on the relevant credit card that we are trying to hit the minimum spend on to earn a sign up bonus.

Re-occurring Costs:

• Apple Pay: I rarely carry a wallet anymore and typically use Tap to Pay on my phone
• Google Pay: I used to NEVER store my credit card info; however in the past year I've realized how convenient this is and how much easier it makes using the "right" card, so I've converted)
• Grocery Account: We primarily do online pick-up through Kroger for groceries; so I make sure I add the card as default since groceries are a common spend item that add up!
• Instacart: We use Instacart for Costco delivery; which typically is just once a month, but is another expense that adds up
• Amazon: I REALLY try to limit how much money we "give" to Amazon, but inevitably there are enough purchases in a months' time that this adds up also
• Childcare: Enough said - school or summer; these costs occur year-round and generally are a heavy hit.
• Xcel: Our electrical/gas utility (Typically I do NOT put this on autopay because we usually get a new card every few months so I manually pay. However, our current card we are working on the sign up bonus for is the new Sapphire Reserve Business card, which allows 6 months to hit the minimum spend. In this case, I added the card and set up autopay)
• Auto Insurance: Similar to above, I generally do not put auto insurance on autopay - I simply do manual pay monthly to remember to utilize whatever card we're working on a sign up bonus for. However, with our current card having a high spend but six months to achieve, I enrolled in autopay with that card.
  
• Nuuly (clothing rental subscription): Usually I leave this on autopay with one of my Chase business cards to have reoccurring charges and keep in good standing; however with our current card having a high spend but six months to achieve, I enrolled in autopay with that card.

Upcoming One-Time Costs:

• Epic Ski account: we signed up to renew our ski passes in April, but only paid $49 down at the time because I wanted to put the price of the pass (close to $2K for our family. Ouch! but so worth it.) on a new credit card to work towards a sign up bonus. This charge will hit in August, with whatever card is saved on file. Updating the account billing as soon as I received the new card makes it so I don't have to think about when the charge hits, if it's on the "right" card.  
• HOA: our HOA isn't terribly expensive, but it's paid once a year, so the timing was right to charge it to the new card we're working on the minimum spend for.

There ya have it! Above are some of our families major re-occurring and one-time expenses for the next 6 months. Of course, there's also a lot of beer purchased, Target runs, and dining out/carry-out that happen too. Those costs are all directly charged to whatever card we are working on the sign up bonus for (yep, I no longer use my 5% back Target debit card. In the long run, Target purchases spent towards a credit card's minimum spend to earn a sign up bonus are much more valuable to me than 5% cash back). When one of us gets a new credit card, I literally pull ALL of the other cards out of my husband's wallet to ensure he uses that card we need him to ;)

There are other reoccurring costs we have that I don't update the billing for; generally because the spend is smaller, we don't "need" those costs in order to meet a minimum spend, and I don't want to put in extra effort for a small return.

For example Spotify charges monthly to a Chase Ink Cash card for extra points, as does our internet. Disney+ is charged to my American Express Platinum to take advantage of the $20 monthly streaming credit. Etc. You can find a list of Common Charges and Benefits on my Points Tracker Spreadsheet on the "Card Benefits and Cards" tab, as well as a simple spreadsheet method for tracking monthly benefits (like $10/mo Uber/UberEats credit for Amex Gold Personal card).

I hope you found this post helpful and something you can refer back to, until you find your own groove with each credit card you open!

> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

New to Points: Where To Begin?!

Hi friends! I'm so glad you're here! While we've been traveling both casually on points for years as well as exclusively on points in more recent years, I understand it's daunting when you want to start collecting points and traveling for free, but don't know where or how to start. There's A LOT of information out there and it can be overwhelming!

I'm taking this post to break down my recommendations on how to start in the points game; whether you want to jump right in and get card after card, or grab one card and dip your toes, here's a general frame work of what I would do and some essential rules/knowledge you need to have.

How and Where to Start with Points/Miles

Now before I even get to step one, I want to remind you of a few things:

The easiest and quickest way to earn a lot of points is by opening a new credit card and spending the minimum spend amount in the allotted time given (commonly 3 months, up to 6 months), in order to obtain the card's sign up bonus. Sign up bonuses ARE the reason to get a new credit card. Earning a sign up bonus will typically, if not always, outweigh the amount of points you'll earn verse using the same credit card daily for all of your expenses.

This WILL lead to you having more credit cards opened and more management on your end; however, you also don't HAVE to keep getting new credit cards if you don't want to. You can simply start with one new card, get the sign up bonus, and utilize those points and be done. How many cards you want to get (and manage) is up to you and your spend. 

I have drafted a separate post about closing credit cards; but I'll stick in here, never close a credit card until you've had it open at least 12 months. Closing a card any sooner than the one year mark will jeopardize your relationship and ability to get future cards with that bank.

1. Identify Your Budget 

Before you open any new credit card, you need to know what the minimum spend to hit the sign up bonus is and you need a plan to hit that minimum spend.

Minimum spend amount will vary depending on which card you're opening and also typically corresponds to the sign up bonus offer (ie: higher spends may yield higher sign up bonus). A minimum spend on a credit card sign up offer can be anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000.

Since we need to make sure you have a plan how to hit the minimum spend, before opening a new card, you need to know how many you spend in given month. If you have no idea, I recommend looking at your current credit card(s) and checking account and coming up with a rough idea of what your basic monthly costs are.

Below I'm providing examples of what reoccurring costs and one-time costs, I rely on and consider before opening a new card (note: these are items we can charge to a credit card if needed/wanted)

Common Monthly Expenses: Childcare (including after-school care), groceries, internet, gas/electric utility, car insurance, dining out, sports/activities, beer/alcohol, prescriptions, cell phone streaming services (Spotify, Netflix, Disney, etc), Nuuly rental, coffee subscription, gas (for driving), therapy, etc

(even excluding some of these smaller items, we easily hit $1,500/mo on these items; but I wanted to list out our reoccurring costs to help you think about your own)

One-time/Less Frequent Expenses: These are costs you don't necessarily have every month, but are worth considering when looking ahead the next few months prior to opening a credit card, that may help you hit a minimum spend easier or quicker. Some of my households considerations are items like: Summer camp, taxes, car repair, home repair, large item purchase, medical/dental costs, car down payment, HOA, ski passes, travel, concert/sports tickets, birthdays, holidays, etc

Based on the lists above, and your own habits/spending, you should identify a rough number of what you spend in a month. Then multiply that by three and that will give you an idea of what kind of minimum spend on a new credit card that you can hit WITHOUT going in debt and simply leveraging your normal routine costs.

From there, then it's ideal if you can preemptively think ahead of upcoming larger purchases you need to make to help to plan if and when you could take advantage of getting a new credit card and hitting the minimum spend to get the sign up bonus.

2. Identify Your 5/24 Count

Ugh, I know, we're back to this rule again! If you've been here a little while, hopefully you've already seen me talk about Chase 5/24 rule. I'll continue to do this because it is *so* critical for long term strategy. 

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Chase will NOT approve you for new credit cards (personal or business cards) if you've got 5 or more personal* credit cards of any time in the last 24 month period. This can include bank cards (Chase, Amex, Capital One, Wells Fargo, etc), store cards (Old Navy, Lowes, Nordstrom, you name it), etc. This also includes if you have been added as an authorized user to someone else's credit card** 

Ideally, there are no "joint" cards in this game. To maximize your point earn, each adult in your relationship should have credit cards in their own name; if you have others willing to participate. This also helps from a point earning perspective because not only can you earn a sign up bonus by hitting the minimum spend on a new credit card; the person who already has the credit card can refer the second person (referred to as "player", ie "player 2" or "P2") to the card, that way in total you earn points for referring P2 to a card, and P2 earns points for the sign up bonus!

*Generally, business cards do not count in your 5/24 count (Capital One business cards do). However, you must be under 5/24 to be able to get approved for a Chase business card.

**If you are an authorized user (AU) on someone's credit card, or if you have authorized users on your credit card; you can call the issuing financial institution and ask to have the AU removed. This should free up a "spot" on your 5/24 account. 

The 5/24-rule is why it's worth considering if you can add business cards to your wallet. Read up here on business cards for "non-traditional" businesses and how to apply.

3. Understand Thy Partners

To maximize value of the points you earn; you’re going to transfer the points from the bank directly to travel partners (like airlines and hotels).

This typically allows you to use less points than booking in a bank’s travel portal!

Each bank has different travel partners (airlines and hotels) that you can transfer your bank points to, in order to book directly for lower points cost. There are some overlaps in travel partners and some companies that only transfer from one bank. For example - Chase is the only bank that has a direct transfer option for United, Southwest, and Hyatt.

American Express, Chase, and Capital One all transfer to British Airways, Air France/KLM (Flying Blue Program); which is really nice because you can pool your points from all of these banks to the travel partner to book!

While it is nice to collect a variety of bank ecosystem points, at the same time, especially when you're first starting off, it's important to know which travel partners your points can be transferred to. If you want to use points to book a domestic trip, more than likely you should focus on Chase instead of going for Capital One points.

It's not a bad thing to start with just one bank, learn their in's and out's and as you gain comfort and knowledge to then expand to other banks. In the opposite token, if you're able to continually hit minimum spends, it's not a bad thing to open up cards across various banks to earn various points. Just know that different banks have different partners that you can transfer to.

4. Apply!

While, I have my top-3 cards I recommend, I recommend these with a grain of salt because they span across three different banks (see above). I truly think that Chase is the easiest/most beginner friendly of all the banks when it comes to wanting to earn and redeem points (especially for domestic US travel), which is why I recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred as the very first points card to open.

I am working on a google docs form to offer free credit card consultation to help you figure out what card to open next. Once that's complete, I'll add a link here :) in the meantime, feel free to reach out via email! justcallmehaha @ gmail.com

Keep in mind Step 2 - the 5/24 rule.

FAQ

Now that we've covered the basic steps to earn points and points strategy, let's talk about commonly asked questions. (If I missed a burning question from you - feel free to DM me on IG or email me: justcallmehaha@gmail . com)

How Do You Keep This All Straight?!

I get asked this questions all.the.time. I know that the thought of having multiple credit cards, let alone across multiple banks is overwhelming to a lot of people (you're not alone!). If this is you - I would recommend starting out only focusing on Chase and earning Ultimate Rewards points. You don't have to be an expert across all bank ecosystems - but you do need to choose a starting point and Chase really is the most beginner friendly (especially for US domestic trips).

I promise, once you get in a groove and find a comfort level, opening more cards and expanding across banks becomes a little less daunting.

But, I also am a numbers/Type A person, and it may not surprise you that I LOVE a good spreadsheet. I've built out a spreadsheet that I utilize to track and remind myself about our cards, benefits, trips, etc. It all lives right here in this Google Sheet!  You can save a copy of for yourself and modify as you like. (I'll do a separate post to walk through each worksheet).

Doesn't This Hurt Your Credit?

This is another misconception about the points game/opening multiple credit cards. Would you believe that our credit scores have both actually increased in the past three years that we've gotten more serious and frequent with opening our credit cards?!

In the past three years, I have opened 12 credit cards and "my husband" (aka me, with his permission) has opened 11 new credit cards - we both have credit scores at (or above) 800. Here's why:

• Credit Score is made up of several factors:
• Payment History (35%)
• We pay off our credit cards in full, every month. Just because we are spending on credit cards, doesn't mean that we are spending outside of our means. Because of this, I put all of our credit cards on auto-pay to pay off the statement balance. I do still frequently check our checking account, just to make sure that the funds needed to pay the cards are there.
• Note: when you're paying off your credit card, you need to pay off the statement balance to avoid incurring interest charges. If you pay just the minimum balance then you will incur interest charges.
• Did you know that it's actually better to wait for a monthly balance and pay once a month to improve your score? I used to pay off our credit card as we spent (say you look at your credit card balance daily and pay it off right away, or if you pay weekly, every Friday); then when your monthly statement closes, if your account is paid off, you report a balance of $0 to the credit bureaus. This isn't necessarily helpful to your credit score. By letting your credit card statement close with a balance on it and then paying off the statement balance, you report credit USE to the bureaus and this actually helps your credit score increase because they see that you are utilizing credit AND paying it off!
• Amount Owed (30%)
• This is another large chunk of your credit score and another area where opening multiple cards can actually help increase your score.
• Why? Because this is also referred to as credit utilization. The more credit you have available to you and the less of that credit you use, the lower your credit utilization; which in turn can increase your credit score.
• Let's say you have one household credit card with a $20K credit limit. Each monthly you charge $4K to that one credit card. That means you're utilizing 20% of your credit each month ( [$4k/$20k]*100 = 20%). If you were to open a second credit card and receive a second $20K limit, but maintain your monthly $4K spend on the credit cards, then your credit utilization decreases in half, to 10% (amount owed/credit available, ie ([$4k/$40k]*100 = 10%).
• Having more credit available (again, used responsibly!) can increase your score!

Those two factors above account for 60% of your credit score, and as you can see, you can actually benefit from having multiple credit cards to increase your credit score!

• Length of History (15%)
• With opening multiple cards a year, our credit histories to get impacted - however, to offset this, we both keep open our oldest credit card(s) with 15 year+ history - simply to help average out a longer length of credit history.
• Do NOT close your oldest credit cards. If you have a card with an annual fee that you no longer benefit from, before you close it, call the bank to see if you can downgrade the card to one without an annual fee. Downgrading a credit keeps the original length of credit history
• Credit Mix (10%)
• This simply accounts for the different types of debt you have and your success in managing them (credit cards, student loans, mortgage, car loan, etc)
• New Credit (10%)
• This accounts for hard pulls (inquiries) on your credit history.
• This is one area where opening credit cards can have a slightly ding to your score and cause a temporary decrease in your score when you apply. However, this generally jumps back up and levels your score with time.

Do You Ever Close Cards??

Yep, there is a strategy and thought process that goes into closing cards. I said above that my husband and I opened a combined total of 23 cards in the last three years - but no, we do not have all 23 of those cards still open at this time.

Because closing cards does require thought and strategy, I'm going to save this for it's own independent post; but I want to emphasize here - if you want to close a credit card, make sure you've had the card open for at least 12 months before closing. Closing a card before having it open for a years' time can be a red flag to a bank and jeopardize your relationship with the bank!

Summary

This is a lot of information to take in!! However, it's also a lot of fundamental information you should commit to memory (or at least bookmark this post and to come back to as you need) if you want to start earning and traveling on points, especially in a sustainable manner.

I'm also going to stick the FAQ in their own independent post - that way it's easier to find and add to in the future!

> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Tabacon Hot Springs (Costa Rica)

We are back from our Costa Rica trip and, as you may have guessed, it was amazing!!!

We split time in the rainforest area of La Fortuna Arenal (the volcano) and the pacific side beach area of Playa Langosta and Tamarindo. This post will focus on the hotel we stayed at with points!

Tabacon Thermal Resort and Spa

What

Tabacon is an independent 105 boutique hotel, located roughly 10 minutes outside of the town of La Fortuna (Arenal) and approximately 3-hour drive from either major airport (Liberia or San Jose).

The hotel itself is located one on section of the property and has a thermal hot spring resort on a separate section of the property. It's a 3-minute walk between the two areas or you can utilize the hotel shuttle. 

The thermal hot springs are open to the public (for a fee; for our family to get a one day pass would have cost $399!)

Booking with Points

The cost to stay 5 nights Tabacon Resort, which is part of Small Luxury Hotels, bookable with Hilton

• Cash price: ~$2,800 
• Price We Paid: $0 ($0 resort fees when booking Hyatt or Hilton on points; $0 for kids - see below) 

              VS

• Points price: 400K Hilton points (at 80k/nt * 5 nights (although it can run higher)) 
• Points paid: 160k Amex points (transferred to Hilton to book direct)

 How?!

 1. Amex points transfer to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio. So when I transferred 160k  points Amex to Hilton, I automatically had 320k Hilton points to book direct. (Here is a refresher on how to transfer points from a bank to a travel partner. Scroll down)

 2. You’re doing the math and 320k pts isn’t 80k/nt* 5 nights 🤔… you’re right. 

That’s because with Hilton, when you have Silver status or higher, if you book 4 nights, you get the 5th night free! 

I’m a personal platinum holder, which automatically got me Hilton Gold Status. I opened the platinum right before we booked this trip, knowing I would be able to utilize this benefit. For 5th night free, you need to have all of the points and status at time of booking (ie need to have 4 nights on one reservation)

American Express Family Rule: for personal cards there are the green*, gold, and platinum. The Family Rule states that you need to open the cards in lowest to highest order, in order to be eligible for the sign up bonus. For example, if you open an Amex Platinum card, then in the future you can't get a Gold card SUB. (This is NOT applicable to American Express Business cards)

*many people, myself included, skip getting the green card and go right for the gold as the green card sign up bonus is usually 15-25k points and often not "worth" a 5/25 spot. (I already had opened the Gold, before I opened the Platinum).

If you're interested in opening an Amex Gold (or Platinum), you can read more here on the Gold. As always, I share my points knowledge in hopes to inspire others but also appreciate you using my referral links!

Timing: I booked our stay roughly 4.5 months in advance. (Although it's worth noting, the hotel is already sold out for Winter 2025 holiday stays Dec 16-Jan 5. If you want a holiday stay, you need to be ready to book as soon as the dates release. For Hilton this is up to 365 days in advance)

Room Type: We booked two King Orchid Rooms since we were traveling with my parents. Each room could accommodate 3 people (2 adults on the king bed and one child on the "couch", which the staff made up into a bed).

Paying for Kids

I specifically want call out how we stayed at this resort with kids, because at first, it's frustrating and tricky. I know I had questions about booking with kids and there is little information since this resort switched to SLH/Hilton, so I hope this will help others

When you do a points search on Hilton's website for Tabacon, as soon as you add a child to your reservation, most likely, all room availability will go away. I realized when I was searching that even though I could find a room type that accommodated 3-4 people (King Orchid for 3 or Queen Orchid for 4), whenever I put in more than 2 adults for a points booking on Hilton, the room availability completely went away. 

After calling Hilton and Tabacon directly to question why this was, I was told to book the points stay for 2 adults and as long as the room type could accommodate more people, we could pay to add the kid at time of check-in, at the cost of $75/kid/night. This wasn't quite ideal, to pay $150/night to bring our kids, but we decided it was still worth it.

And guess what?! We checked in and checked out; they never charged us for our child!!! I'm not sure if we got lucky or the hotel front desk doesn’t know they’re supposed to charge; but I tripled checked our bill and we didn’t pay anything extra.

Other Tabacon Thoughts

The hotel is fairly small, but we found it lovely (gorgeous grounds) and amazing staff. Twice, we came to our room and found free “extras” like a delicious fruit plate and macaroons. 

Free breakfast for all, with omelet and waffle station; plus hot items, fresh fruit and juice, several, yogurts, toast/pastries, etc.

Cocktails were awesome and so fresh, but $17-23ea. We purchased beer from a liquor store (the room had a small mini fridge) and we able to bring them to the hotel pool without issue.

I would say it’s similar level luxury to Grand Hyatt Kauai, but a much smaller scale (and not as nice of a gym 🤣; but the free yoga classes were lovely!). Better breakfast! 

The hotel guest-only hours for the hot springs resort and the adults-only/hotel guest-only section of the hot springs were a highlight of this property for us. 

We had a rental car and were glad we did. While excursions generally offered transportation; we went to town most days and appreciated having the car for that. Valet parking was free (plus tip). 

Note: June 11-16, 2025 the resort pool with the water slide was closed under construction and is NOT advertised online from anywhere we looked. That was a bit disappointing, but thankfully we hadn’t shown our kids in advance that it existed.

Hotel Pool (for guests only)

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!