Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card

Having now discussed the cheapest Southwest Rapid Rewards card (the Plus card), it’s time for the next card in the series: the Premier card.  This card has a $99 annual fee, so let’s investigate what the extra $30 gets you and if it’s worth the extra $30.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Southwest Plus card has an enhanced welcome offer of 60 000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $3 000 in the first 3 months of account opening. In addition, the card gives you a 30% promo code off one one-way or round-trip flight. Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program is a revenue-based program, and pretty consistently, Rapid Rewards points are worth 1.5 ¢/pt.  That makes this welcome offer worth $750, which is good for a $99 annual fee card.  However, this is the same bonus as the Rapid Rewards Plus card, which is unusual because often cards from the same line with higher annual fees have bigger welcome bonuses.

Earnings

The Rapid Rewards Premier card has an “enhanced” earning structure over the Plus card.  Specifically, it earns 3x points/$ on Southwest purchases.  Otherwise, it has the same 2x points/$ on “Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partners”, local transit and commuting, internet/cable/phone services, and select streaming options.  The card earns 1x point/$ on everything else. 

Benefits

For its $99 annual fee, this card provides benefits of a comparable value to the major airlines’ low annual fee cards.  The card offers a bonus 6 000 points each year (worth $90), which erases almost all the annual fee.  The card also offers a bonus of 1 500 tier qualifying points towards A-list status (Southwest’s version of elite status) for every $10 000 spent on the card.  For context, A-list requires 35 000 tier qualifying points. 

The rest of the benefits are the same as on the Plus card.  The card offers 2 “EarlyBird Check-In” rebates each year. EarlyBird check-in checks you automatically at the 36 hour mark and helps you get an earlier boarding position and thus, probably, a better seat (but a boarding position of A16 or later).  The card also offers 25% back on inflight purchases, but Southwest does not sell food onboard, so this is just 25% back on premium (e.g. alcoholic) drinks.  Finally, the card offers a boost of 10 000 Companion Pass qualifying points each year.  These points can’t be used for anything by themselves and are only relevant if you’re close to getting a Companion Pass (135 000 qualifying points required).

The “upgrade certificates” cost at least $15 each, so these certificates and the points combined represent $120+ of value. 

How to use the points

The main use for Southwest Rapid Rewards points is to redeem them for Southwest flights and other “Rapid Rewards” partners.  I’ve only ever used the points for Southwest flights at their standard rate of 1.5 ¢/pt, and since it’s a flat rate, it means that there are always seats available for points.  Southwest is a transfer partner of Chase and so Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred in to boost your Rapid Rewards point balance.

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend all your airfare budget at Southwest.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (2x)	$700	2 100	$200	600	$0	0	$400	1 200
Hotels (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$200	200	$0	0	$300	300
Gen Travel (2x)	$400	800	$0	0	$300	600	$100	200
Dining (1x)	$600	600	$300	300	$300	300	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	5 800	$1 500	1 900	$1 700	2 200	$1 700	2 600
Average points/$		1.45		1.26		1.29		1.53

The enhanced earning structure over the Plus card means that the average points earned has a wider (and improved) range of 1.26 – 1.53 points/$, which is worth 1.89 – 2.30 ¢/$.  That’s a good return for an airline co-branded credit card with a $99 annual fee.  That being said, Chase offers better earning opportunities on its non-co-branded cards.

Specific examples

These examples include the bonus points earned from getting IHG Elite Platinum status from the card.

Card	Southwest wanna get away fare ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (WT/Hotel)
No rewards card	4 050 RRP (8.1%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$60.75 / $11.00
General 2% cashback card ($0)	4 050 + $15.00 (10.1%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.3%)	$75.75 / $15.60
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95)	4 050 + 1 500 UR (11.1%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.3%)	$83.25 / $17.90
Amex Green Card ($150)	4 050 + 2 250 MR (12.3%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.5%)	$92.25 / $21.35
Southwest Premier card ($99)	6 300 RRP (5.9%)	2 200 MP + 230 RRP (8.7%)	$94.50 / $14.45

Is this credit card right for you?

So, is the card worth the extra $30 compared to the Plus card? I think so on the condition that you travel with Southwest enough to use the points each year and value the upgraded boarding positions. Overall, I think this card could potentially make sense, especially if you don’t want to pay a high annual fee.  I think this card’s value proposition is slightly better than the Plus card, but I’m still not overly convinced on it.  Luckily there is still one more card to check out: the Southwest Priority card.