Earlier this summer, I posted about Southwest’s personal credit cards issued by Chase, which included the Rapid Rewards Plus, Rapid Rewards Premier, and Rapid Rewards Priority cards. I tend not to often post much about business credit cards on here. I am, in general, less interested in them because I find most of them to be largely duplicative of personal cards and I don’t really have enough business revenue/expenses to need many cards. That being said, there are a lot of co-branded business cards that offer interesting travel perks. The first ones that come to mind are the Southwest Rapid Rewards Business cards. First, I’ll talk about the Premier Business card in this post, which comes with a $99 annual fee and is largely comparable to the Rapid Rewards Premier card. There are also the Rapid Rewards Plus Business and Rapid Rewards Performance Business cards.
I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card. The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.
Welcome Offer
At the time of posting, the Southwest Premier Business card has a welcome offer of 60 000 Rapid Rewards points after you spend $3 000 in the first 3 months of account opening. 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 $99 annual fee card. However, this is the same bonus as the Rapid Rewards Plus card, which is unusual because often cards from the same line with higher annual fees have bigger welcome bonuses.
Earnings
The Rapid Rewards Premier card a similar (but more restrictive) earning structure to the personal Premier card. It earns 3x points/$ on Southwest purchases; 2x points/$ on Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partners, local transit, and commuting; and 1x point/$ on everything else.
Benefits
For its $99 annual fee, this card provides a fair number of benefits to help you earn back the annual fee. These benefits are almost identical to the personal version.
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). These “upgrade certificates” cost at least $15 each, so these two benefits combined represent $120+ of value. 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.
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). Finally, the card offers a $500 fee credit for transferring points to another Rapid Rewards member.
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 (3x) | $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 3/2/1 earning structure means that the average points earned has a wider (and improved) range of 1.26 – 1.53 points/$, which is worth 1.94 – 2.30 ¢/$. That’s a good return for an airline co-branded credit card with a $99 annual fee.
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 (12.6%) | 2 200 MP + 230 RRP (8.7%) | $94.50 / $14.45 |
Is this credit card right for you?
My opinion of this card is basically the same as the personal card: if you travel with Southwest enough to use the points each year and value the upgraded boarding positions and points offered by this card, then I think this card could potentially make sense, especially if you don’t want to pay a high annual fee. I actually think the Rapid Rewards Performance Business card is the better business card option, but I would’ve been remiss to not first discuss the cheaper option.
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