Ranking the best & worst of Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards 2027 program changes

Just when Southwest Airlines fans were starting to get comfortable, the airline lowered the boom again last week. After nearly two years of frequent changes to many aspects of the airline's operations and rules, Southwest has now announced a significant reboot to its Rapid Rewards loyalty program. These additional changes will take effect on January 1, 2027.

Rapid Rewards has seen minor tweaks in the last couple of years. Points moved from being worth a fixed value to a slightly variable scale, and a couple of small devaluations have happened. But 2027 will mark the first time in a long time that the entire Rapid Rewards ecosystem will see a major overhaul.

Unsurprisingly, Southwest has packaged up the changes in a pretty box and tied it with a nice bow, trying to sell them as offering "more opportunities" for customers. As a Southwest frequent flyer, however, I know how to see through the marketing speak and get to the heart of the matter (❤️💙💛 pun intended).

On the whole, these changes are not an improvement for the vast majority of Southwest travelers, myself included. The program will become a little more straightforward and/or rewarding for a small group of people, and there are a few extra bonuses not available before.

But those benefits won't apply to most of you who read this site. And one lucrative benefit that a lot of family travelers took advantage of over the years, the Southwest Companion Pass, is now significantly harder to earn.

Related: Complete guide to flying Southwest Airlines with kids

There are many pages of FAQs on Southwest's website that you need to read to take in all of the adjustments. So I thought it would be helpful to break out each of the program changes and rank them, separating the (few) positive ones from the (more numerous) neutral and negative ones so you can see which ones affect how you book and fly.

Quick recap of Southwest Rapid Rewards 2027 program changes

Before we dive into the rankings, here's a very quick TLDR summary of the major changes coming to the program to get oriented.

New terminology: A-List members will become Silver, A-List Preferred members will become Gold, and a new tier (Platinum) is being created. Platinum status is the only way to earn an unlimited Companion Pass. The number of flown flights needed or Tier Qualifying Points needed to re-qualify for Silver or Gold in 2027 is being slightly adjusted from what it was in 2026.

New TQP: The main way to qualify for Silver, Gold, or Platinum is by earning Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) (an alternative method is by number of one-way flights flown). TQPs can mainly be earned by putting spending on Southwest co-branded credit carts (1 TQP per $1 spent) or from flying (fare cost x multiplier for each fare type).

No more Companion Pass Qualifying Points: Southwest will be discontinuing a separate type of points that counted towards earning a Southwest Companion Pass. Points earned from credit card welcome bonuses, credit card referral bonuses, bonus category spend put on Southwest credit cards, booking with some Southwest partners, and a few other methods all used to count towards earning a Companion Pass. No longer. Now, only TQPs (or flight count) matter. You must earn 140,000 TQPs to hit Platinum and get the unlimited Companion Pass.

New Milestone Rewards: For Rapid Rewards members who earn TQPs (or fly a number of one-way flights) that fall in between some of the elite status tiers, Southwest will now award some new intermediate Milestone Rewards bonuses.

Meaningful program improvements

So let's start with good news. There are at least a couple of changes to the Rapid Rewards program that are actually better in a meaningful way.

But as you'll see, they may not move the needle for you personally, depending on your travel habits and preferences. Neither does for me.

1. Ability to earn and redeem on international airline partners

Southwest has announced a lot of partnerships with international airlines over the past year, including Icelandair, Singapore Air, and most recently, Etihad (so recent it's not even on the website graphic yet).

For travelers who have a lot of Southwest points and want to fly somewhere other than places like Nashville or Phoenix, being able to earn and redeem on other airlines is potentially pretty valuable.

I'll be honest though. This feature is still a bit of a "meh" for me personally, at least for now. I live close to airports that are home to a lot of international low cost carriers (Volaris, French Bee, ZIPAIR), so I already find cheap Southwest-like ways to get to a lot of places outside of the US. I'm more than happy to keep using my Southwest points for all my domestic travels, using other airline programs for international redemptions.

Additionally, until we find out what the earn rates and partner redemption award charts are going to look like (those key details were NOT in the recent announcement), we don't yet know whether this feature will be all that valuable.

2. 1 TQP per $1 spent on all Southwest co-branded credit cards

In the previous Rapid Rewards ecosystem, Southwest used TQPs to determine whether a member qualified for A-List or A-List Preferred status. The upcoming 2027 changes will now make it easier to earn TQPs via credit card spend.

In the past, the most expensive Southwest credit cards (the Priority personal card and Performance Business card) only earned 2500 TQPs per $5000 spent. That's only 1 TQP earned per $2 spent.

The middle tier credit cards earned even less. The Premier card earned an anemic 1,500 TQPs for each $5000 spent in purchases, the Premier Business card earned 2000 TQPs for each $5000, and the cheapest Plus card didn't earn TQP at all.

Now, all those cards earn 1 TQP per $1 spent, making it significantly easier to earn Silver or Gold status via credit card spending. If you care about reaching status, this program change is noticeably improved—by at least double and perhaps significantly more depending on which card you hold.

But, query whether having Silver or Gold status is even useful to you. Personally, I care very little about chasing Southwest status even though I currently am A-List (I get it as a perk for spending big on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card). Most of the benefits I need when flying Southwest—a free checked bag, advanced seat assignments with free upgrades to extra legroom seats a reasonable percentage of the time, something better than dead last boarding priority—come simply from holding the $229 Southwest Priority card.

I don't need to put tens of thousands of dollars each year in spending on a Southwest card to earn an second free checked bag (a Gold benefit) or get Group 1 boarding instead of Group 5 boarding (a Silver benefit). I especially don't need to do this when other travel rewards credit cards out there have much better earning potential.

I only really care about the Companion Pass. If that describes you too, this TQP change is not really a new benefit. Southwest's credit cards of old already earned at a 1:1 rate when it came to counting Companion Pass qualifying points. With those now replaced by TQP, customers who want to earn Platinum status to get a Companion Pass through spending alone are no better off. (Indeed they are worse off, as I'll cover more below.)

Better than a sharp stick in the eye (minor improvements)

Next up are all the little changes that could be counted as minor improvements to the program, but ones that aren't likely to move the needle for the vast majority of people.

3. Milestone Rewards between Gold and Platinum

Some of you may fight me on this, but I find the new Milestone Rewards perks pretty weak and not quite good enough to put in the meaningful improvements category above. The better of the two Milestone Rewards levels though is undoubtedly the one awarded approximately halfway between the Gold and Platinum status levels.

To earn Gold, a customer must fly 50 one-way flights or earn 65,000 TQPs. To get from there all the way to Platinum requires double the number of flights (100) or 140,000 TQPs. Milestone Rewards gives customers in between a perk at 75 one-way flights or 95,000 TQPs.

If you hit this Milestone Rewards level, you'll earn 3 Companion Passes, good on any one-way or roundtrip Southwest booking, valid until the end of the year after the year in which they are earned.

Three Companion Passes could certainly be valuable if used strategically, especially on pricier roundtrip flights. But I find this benefit pretty limited in its impact because it still requires a massive amount of flying and/or spending to earn.

Plus, it requires you to have to think hard about how you can strategically use the certificates best. If you save them because a near-term trip seems "too cheap" to waste them on, you risk running out of time to use them if your future travel plans to a more expensive destination don't ultimately happen. There is a real risk of breakage.

There's further breakage caused by the fact they are good on 3 one-way or 3 roundtrip itineraries, instead of just 6 one-ways. There are a lot of reasons many passengers prefer to book one-way flights, and this perk loses some of its value if it forces people into a roundtrip fare they wouldn't otherwise book.

I always book one-way flights because I book Basic fares (it's impossible to re-price one leg of a Basic fare itinerary when prices drop without cancelling the other flight, which is a problem when the other flight has increased in price). I also book one-ways sometimes if I need to take a multi-city trip or if another airline has a better flight time or cheaper fare in one of the two directions.

All of those considerations make these Companion Pass certificates worth a little less.

4. Milestone Rewards on the way to Silver

The other new Milestone Rewards bonus is significantly less valuable. If you fly 15 one way flights or earn 20,000 TQP, you can earn your choice of 1) 2000 Rapid Rewards points or 2) Two Preferred Seat Certificates.

These benefits are almost so meager as to be insulting. 2000 points is worth less than $30 in redeemable airfare. Two preferred seat certificates are worth about $50-90. But anyone who flies Southwest enough to hit 20K TQP or 15 flights in a calendar year is almost certain also to be a credit card holder. Southwest's credit cards already come with seating benefits. In fact, the Priority and Performance Business cards come with free Preferred seating, making this Milestone Rewards perk worth exactly $0 to those card holders.

If Southwest would allow gifting of the seat certificates to friends or family traveling separately, that might be one thing. But the fine print makes clear that's not allowed.

5. Higher bonus multiplier for Silver members

Southwest awards bonus points to members with elite status when they purchase flights, and in 2027, Silver members will earn a 40% bonus on all paid flight bookings, up from 25% for equivalent A-Listers in 2026.

The extra points in play though are small potatoes. For example, booking a Choice fare which awards 6x points per dollar spent on a flight that costs $229 earns a regular customer $229 x 6 = 1374 Rapid Rewards points. Silver members will earn 40% more, or 1924 points (up from the A-List 25% bonus of 1718 points). Note that the bonus points do not count as TQPs (only the 6x base points do).

That just a couple hundred extra redeemable points per flight though. If you take 25 Southwest flights a year as many Silver customers do, maybe you'll clear 5000 extra points with this change—worth about $70 in airfare—and you'll be no closer to the Companion Pass. Better than nothing, but not game-changing.

6. Platinum perks other than the Companion Pass

With the addition of a new Platinum status level, Southwest has added a few perks in addition to the Companion Pass awarded for reaching Platinum. Mostly, however, these are worth very little. Platinum flyers get a 3rd free checked bag, but how often does anyone really need that?

They also get 120% redeemable (not TQP) bonus points on all paid bookings. But A-List Preferred members used to get a 100% bonus (soon, Gold will get only 60%). So this is only a small improvement over what the old A-List Preferred customers used to get, for much more spending and/or flying required.

Noticeably absent from this portfolio of perks that a frequent flyer might find useful is free Same Day Change on all fare types (only free Same Day Standby is offered—the same that Silver and Gold get).

7. One last chance to snag Companion Pass the old way in 2026

It's hard to call this change an improvement, but you'll see why it lands in the slightly positive column for me. Southwest is ending all of the easy ways to earn a Companion Pass (more on that below). Southwest is, however, giving customers one last chance to earn a Companion Pass the old way before it's too late.

Plenty of airlines and hotels make changes to their loyalty programs for the worse that are effective immediately. Southwest didn't do that here, so I'm counting that as a minor perk.

How does this last chance work? Southwest will permit anyone who is approved for a new Southwest credit card by December 2, 2026 to count the welcome bonus points for that card towards qualifying for a Companion Pass that will be good until 2027's end. Moreover, it is granting members an extra grace period to complete the minimum spend on the credit card to earn that welcome bonus. Even if you apply now but don't complete the spend until early 2027, the welcome bonus points will be treated as if they were earned in 2026.

So all hope is not lost for anyone who really wants to make one last herculean effort towards an old school Companion Pass. Realistically, however, this path has a lot of trapdoors that may make earning a pass impracticable or impossible. Specifically, this may not work for you if any one or several of the following apply:

• You aren't eligible for business credit cards or can't get approved for one (Chase has been pretty strict of late)
• You aren't eligible for a welcome bonus on a personal card right now (you can only earn one every 24 months across all Southwest personal cards)
• You are over 5/24 right now (Chase won't approve new cards if you've gotten 5 cards in the last 24 months from any issuer)
• You can't put enough spending on a credit card to earn any additional Companion Pass qualifying points you need (if you can only get one credit card, a welcome bonus only gets you part of the way to the 135,000 points you need so you'd have to earn the rest by spending big before your December statement closes).

But if you find yourself most of the way to a Companion Pass already and can see an easy pathway to it that you qualify for before year's end, seize it! Thankfully both my husband and I already earned Companion Passes earlier this year so we will continue to use them through 2027's end when they expire.

Essentially neutral

Next up for discussion are the changes that don't seem to offer any more value at all, but that are simply rearranging the loyalty deck chairs.

8. Ability to redeem points for seat selection costs

Southwest's Rapid Rewards program changes for 2027 included a small announcement that members would soon be able to redeem Southwest points for the cost of seat selection. That could help a flyer who really doesn't have the extra cash to spend or has a few extra orphan points to burn, but this change is pretty immaterial. I suspect that the most budget-conscious travelers just skip seat assignments entirely anyway.

My further suspicion is that Southwest is unlikely to be generous in the value it assigns to points redeemed to buy assigned seats. If Southwest follows the model that it uses for Points+Cash bookings and gives only 1 cent per point value towards seat assignment purchases, customers will be worse off using their points for seats instead of paying cash, because Rapid Rewards can be redeemed for more than 1 cent per point on airfare (I usually can average about 1.3 cents per point).

Again, this option is meaningless to anyone with a Priority or Performance Business credit card, as they can already select seats for free at booking. It's barely useful to other card holders who get to select seats for free 48 hours in advance.

9. 10,000 TQP boost to cardholders in 2027

Southwest also announced that in 2027, it would be giving a one-time boost of 10,000 TQPs to Southwest credit cardholders who earn 130,000 TQPs that would put them over the top to reach the 140,000 required for Platinum status.

The reason this change is no change at all is that Southwest has always given credit card holders a 10,000 points boost towards their Companion Pass Qualifying Points. Now, the points required to reach Companion Pass is even higher and the boost remains the same (and will be discontinued after 2027).

Affirmatively worse in small and medium ways

10. Lower bonus multiplier for Gold members

While Southwest is tinkering with bonus multipliers for Silver members that earn them a few extra points on paid flights, it is doing the opposite for Gold members. Gold members used to earn 100% extra redeemable points on all fares. The new program revises that down to just a 60% bonus.

Mercifully, this change doesn't take effect immediately. A-List Preferred members transitioning to Gold in 2027 get the 100% bonus until the end of 2027 before the new reduced rate applies. But after that time, Gold status looks a little less shiny.

11. More flights required to hit Silver status

Customers trying to reach A-List status can do that one of two ways: by flying 20 one-way flights or earning 35,000 TQPs. The new equivalent Silver status keeps the same TQP requirement, but will now require 25 one-way flights for customers looking to earn through flight count instead of TQPs.

For customers who earn status by flying a lot of inexpensive short Southwest flights (who thus won't meet the TQP minimums through flying alone or even through flying and a fair amount of credit card spending), you'll have to hop on 5 more Southwest planes a year to keep Silver status—nearly 1 extra every other month.

12. Reduced earning on Choice Preferred and Choice Extra fares

Another negative change buried in the new program announcement applies to points earned on Southwest's two most expensive fare classes - Choice Preferred and Choice Extra. Choice Extra fares used to earn 10x points per dollar spent, but that will be revised down to 8x points per dollar spend in 2027.

Similarly, the most expensive fare, Choice Extra, which used to earn 14x points per dollar spent will now only earn 10x points per dollar spent.

These multipliers help customers earn valuable TQPs (unlike the status multipliers that only earn redeemable points). So when the multipliers decrease, customers purchasing these fares earn less towards re-qualifying for status.

Related: Which Southwest fare type should you purchase?

Most of us don't buy these fares, so why does it matter? I know a lot of Southwest frequent flyers will often buy these more expensive fares at the end of a calendar year if they are close to qualifying for the next status tier, because they can provide a much needed TQP points bump.

The end of the world as we know it

I exaggerate with this category name, but only a little. We have now reached the worst of Southwest's program announcements, and it's fair to say that the only item that falls in this category is game-changing for a lot of people, myself included.

13. Welcome bonuses (and a lot of other points) no longer counting towards Companion Pass

It's not lost on me that we've somehow ended up on unlucky number 13 at the end of this list, because this change is really unlucky for a lot of people. The most massive change to Southwest's new 2027 Rapid Rewards program is the gutting of the Companion Pass.

I've had a Companion Pass nearly each and every year for well over a decade, and this year my husband has one too. That means we fly our family of 4 for the cost of 2 each and every time we fly aboard Southwest. It was an amazing deal, and when amazing deals look too good to be true, they can rarely last.

Many Rapid Rewards members like myself earned the Companion Pass through credit card welcome bonuses. It took 135,000 Companion Pass qualifying points to earn a Companion Pass, and credit card welcome bonuses regularly run about 50,000-85,000 points and have occasionally been as high as 120,000 points on a single card. Many Rapid Rewards members could actually apply for two cards at once (one personal and one business) and earn a Companion Pass via nothing but welcome bonuses.

Other Rapid Rewards members could get one card and then find other methods to earn the remaining points. Qualifying points were earned at a 1 point:$1 spent ratio on credit card spending (with bonus points for category bonuses), for referring other people to the Southwest credit card (spouses could refer spouses), and for booking a hotel or car rental through Southwest's partner programs.

Now, other than the 1:1 credit card spending (and no category bonuses), the vast majority of these points will no longer count toward TQP in 2027. Thus they won't help you on the way to Platinum status and a Companion Pass.

If you want to earn a Companion Pass, you'll have to be a really big spender on a Southwest credit card or a really frequent flyer. I honestly can't recommend being the former because Southwest's credit cards are just not that rewarding for spending. You can earn points that are worth more and that are more flexible from a lot of other travel rewards cards. Consider the opportunity cost.

Plus, most normal folks don't manage household budgets that include $130,000-$140,000 in credit card spending annually.

Of course, the sky isn't falling. And if you are someone who never bothered with the Southwest Companion Pass who simply used Rapid Rewards points for the occasional free flight when you had enough points, your redeemable points balances will likely continue to grow at about the same rate as they did before.

Final thoughts: Looking ahead & what's still TBD

As you can see, there's not much to luv when it comes to the new 2027 Southwest Rapid Rewards program. Several of the improvements only apply to a small segment of customers and confer only minor benefits.

But I've been around the block in the travel world and specifically with Southwest enough to know that there may still be new opportunities on the horizon. There are additional variables with Southwest that are still very much in flux that could change my assessment of the value of Rapid Rewards as a whole in 2027.

Specifically, Southwest recently announced that a new premium credit card is coming in 2027. This card will have a high annual fee, but will include access to new airport lounges currently under construction.

We don't yet know how much this card will cost and what other benefits it might offer to cardholders. If it includes features that make earning TQPs easier or unlocks other Milestone Rewards-like perks for intermediate levels of spend (might I suggest a Milestone Rewards tier that awards a pair of one-way Companion Passes between Silver and Gold?), there could very well be new opportunities for travelers like me, and many of you, to maximize.

Southwest has also offered other ways to earn Companion Passes in the past. For example, the airline has sometimes offered a more limited time Companion Pass as a welcome bonus on a credit card or offered a promotion where customers can fly a small amount to earn one for a few months. If those or similar promotions continue, there could be some hope for travelers who've relied in the past on the Companion Pass to fly cheaper.

I've also noticed Southwest experimenting more heavily the past year with other promotions that unlock more value from redeemable Rapid Rewards points. If that continues, there could be new ways to extract more value out of redeemable points that don't require a Companion Pass or a worry with TQPs at all.

For example, in August 2026, Southwest had a fare sale that applied only to flights booked with Rapid Rewards points. During that sale, I saw a lot of flights available to purchase at 2-3 cents per point (CPP), with some redemptions as high as 4 CPP (normally, Southwest points are redeemable for about 1.1-1.7 CPP). That kind of sale could actually be better than the Companion Pass at the margins, as some flyers could book 3 people for the price of 1!

There have been a couple of instances in 2025 and 2026 where Chase offered a bonus for transferring Ultimate Rewards points to Southwest Rapid Rewards points. Those kinds of promotions make the Rapid Rewards program more enticing as well.

The bottom line is that the jury is still out on the overall value that might be extractable from Southwest's Rapid Rewards program in 2027 and beyond. I'll be watching and waiting to see how I might take advantage and to share with you how you can too.