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Our take: The closest you can get to being a Southwest bigshot.
Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card
Intro bonus
Earn up to 120,000 points. Earn 80,000 points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening and an additional 40,000 points when you spend $15,000 in 9 months..| Annual fee | $199 |
| Regular Purchase APR | 21.49%–28.49% |
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Rewards Rates
- 4x 4X points on Southwest® purchases
- 3x 3X points on Rapid Rewards® hotel and car rental partners
- 2x 2X points on rideshare
- 2x 2X points on social media and search engine advertising, internet, cable, and phone services
- Additional perks: 4 upgraded boardings per year
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Pros
- 9,000 anniversary points each year
- Up to 365 inflight Internet credits every year
- Huge sign-up bonus puts the Companion Pass within reach
Cons
- It’s the most expensive of all of the Southwest credit cards
- Points most valuable when used for flights with the airline
- Travel protections don’t include trip delay/cancellation coverage or rental car insurance
Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card Overview
Southwest Airlines is a bit like the Hatch chile pepper–you either love it or it’s just not for you. If you fall into the “It’s my preferred pepper/airline” camp, then the Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card has enough palate-pleasers to justify the $199 annual fee. Although this is a review of the cobranded card and not the airline, it’s important to know what makes Southwest different to understand what makes the card’s perks worthwhile.
Southwest Airlines was founded on the premise of providing excellent service in a low-cost flying model. The company adopted still-unique measures which include offering up to two free checked bags per person, no preassigned seating and no difference in seat size throughout its planes. So if you prefer to travel in business or first-class, you likely aren’t looking to fly Southwest. But if that doesn’t matter to you or you have to fly the airline to get where you need to go, the Performance Card offers as close as you can get to an upscale flying experience with the airline. It offers four free upgraded boarding experiences per year, which means you’ll get first pick of the seats on your flight, enough Wi-Fi credits to cover you every day of the year and your choice of a Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS application fee credit every four years to expedite your airport security experience.
The card also offers elevated rewards on spending with the airlines and its Rapid Rewards partners, a passel of anniversary points each year and the chance to earn Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) through card spending towards the airline’s A-list status, which pretty much means you’ll get priority boarding on all flights and some other ancillary perks like same-day flight changes.
Who is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card good for?
The Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card is good for anyone who plans to fly the airline regularly and can make use of the card’s most valuable perks, like the upgraded boarding passes, the Wi-Fi credits, the trusted traveler application fee credits and the anniversary points.
Who shouldn’t get the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card?
If you only occasionally fly the airline or don’t think you can max out the perks, you should either consider the lower-cost Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card or another, more general purpose travel card.
Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card: How to earn rewards
The Southwest Rapids Rewards Performance Business Card earns at the following rates:
- 4X points on Southwest® purchases
- 3X points on Rapid Rewards® hotel and car rental partners
- 2X points on social media and search engine advertising, internet, cable, and phone services , including rideshare services
- 1X points on all other purchases
It also comes with a welcome bonus of up to 120,000 points. Earn 80,000 points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening and an additional 40,000 points when you spend $15,000 in 9 months..
You can also earn up to 100,000 additional bonus points for referring friends to any Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card. You’ll get 20,000 bonus points for each referral.
There’s additional opportunity to earn Rapid Rewards points through spending with select partners, including Rapid Rewards Shopping, 1-800-FLOWERS and other partners. You can find the full list here.
How to redeem Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card rewards
The best use of Rapid Rewards points is to redeem for flights, where a point is generally worth a fixed value tied to the cash price of the ticket. In most cases you should expect to get a value of about 1.4 cents per point, although your exact redemption value will vary, depending on which fare class you’re redeeming for and the cash price of your ticket. Southwest has four fare classes, starting with the bare bones Wanna Get Away fare to the fancier-sounding Business Select.
However, all seats are the same size on Southwest, and everyone gets up to two checked pieces of baggage for free, so the pricier fares merely cover the cost to have upgraded boarding privileges which means picking your seats earlier and other ancillary perks like higher rewards on paid tickets and refundable fares vs non-refundable. Those last two benefits won’t matter on a ticket booked with points.
Other, less-valuable, redemption options include gift cards, merchandise, hotel stays, rental cars and cardmember experiences through the Southwest More Rewards program, which includes VIP access to concerts and similar hard-to-get events that many credit card issuers use to spice up their redemption catalogs.
Chase’s Pay Yourself Back program also extends to the Southwest Credit cards. So you can use your points to take as a statement credit at a value of 1 cent per point towards the Rapid Rewards Performance Card’s annual fee, or at a value of 0.8 cents per point towards an eligible purchase within 90 days of when the annual fee or charge is posted. The eligible purchase categories change every few months but from April 1 through June 30, 2024 the category is office supply stores.
Additional benefits
Before we get into the card-specific benefits, we need a sidebar about the best potential perk of holding any Southwest credit card—the ability to earn points towards the airline’s Companion Pass perk. This is one of the most generous benefits offered by any airline and allows you to book a companion ticket on any flight you take free of airline charges, although you must pay taxes and fees for that ticket. For anyone who routinely flies with a colleague several times a year on the airline, for business, this could save you a bundle.
To earn a Companion Pass requires flying 100 qualifying one-way flights or earning 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year. Once earned, the pass is good for the following full calendar year, plus the remainder of the year in which you earned it. This means someone who owns the Rapid Rewards Performance Business card, meets the minimum spending requirement to earn the welcome bonus and uses the card with regularity for their business spending has a high probability of earning enough qualifying points to earn the pass. That can be worth more than the card’s carrying cost and card perks combined.
Other card perks specific to the Rapid Rewards Performance card include:
- No charge for additional employee cards. Not having to pay an extra fee to provide cards for staff members is a nice perk.
- 9,000 anniversary points each year. If the average value of a Southwest point is around 1.4 cents each, this yearly bonus is worth about $126 towards your next award flight. Plus, these points count as qualifying points towards a Companion Pass, giving you a nice boost in the years that follow earning the initial welcome bonus.
- 4 upgraded boardings per year (if avialable) . Southwest’s unique policy of first-come, first-likely-to-avoid-a-middle-seat means that those in boarding positions A1 through A15 get first dibs on the seat of their choice. Ownership of the card comes with reimbursement of four upgraded boardings per year, which must be purchased within 24 hours of the flight.
- Up to 365 inflight Wi-Fi credits per year. Wi-Fi costs $8 per device on Southwest flights so for business owners or employees who want to use the in-air time to work, this is a terrific benefit. Since it’s highly unlikely you’ll fly every single day of the year, you can use the credits to connect both a laptop and phone on the same flight.
- Up to $500 transfer fee credit. Should you choose to transfer your Rapid Rewards points to someone else’s account, charge it to your card and be reimbursed up to $500 in transfer fees. Southwest charges $5 for every $500 points transferred with a minimum of 2,000 points needed to transfer.
- Global Entry, TSA PreCheck or NEXUS application fee statement credit: Get reimbursed up to $100 every four years for the cost of the application fee for one of these trusted traveler programs when you charge it to the card.
- Earn Tier Qualifying Points (TQPs) for spending: For every $5,000 spent on the card, earn 1,500 TQPs towards Southwest A-list elite status. A-list status grants priority boarding, a 25% earning bonus and same-day flight changes and requires either 20 one-way flights or 35,000 TQPs in a calendar year to achieve.
- Travel and purchase protections: The card includes lost luggage reimbursement, baggage delay coverage for bags delayed over six hours, extended warranty coverage and purchase protection.
Credit cards similar to Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card
The Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Card brings the heat when it comes to benefits with the airline. But it’s worth comparing to other like-minded options to make sure you pick the best card for your needs.
| Annual fee | Annual fee | Annual fee |
| $199 | $99 | $95 |
| Rewards | Rewards | Rewards |
| 4X points on Southwest® purchases 3X points on Rapid Rewards® hotel and car rental partners 2X points on rideshare 2X points on social media and search engine advertising, internet, cable, and phone services | 3 points per $1 spent on Southwest Airlines® purchases 2 points per $1 spent on Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partner purchases 2 points per $1 spent on local transit and commuting, including rideshare services 1 point per $1 spent on everyday purchases | 3x points per $1 (up to $150,000 combined) spent on shipping purchases, internet, cable, phone, and advertising with social media sites and search engines 3x points for $1 (up to $150,000 combined) spent on purchases like shipping purchases, internet, cable, phone, and advertising 1x point per $1 spent on all other purchases |
| Our take | Our take | Our take |
| If you are a Southwest road warrior, the daily free wifi alone could make this card worth it. Add in anniversary points and strong rewards rates for Southwest purchases and you'll more than recoup the annual fee. | If you want a jump-start on the road to A-List status and the valuable Companion Pass, the Southwest Premier Business card will set you up for success. But if you are a frequent Southwest flyer, do the math and see if the Performance version of this card makes more sense for you. | The Ink Preferred is a strong business travel card due to its large welcome bonus and enhanced earnings on travel and typical business expenses.When it comes time to redeem, choose between an elevated 1.25 cents per dollar with Chase Travel or an attractive set of transfer partners. |
| Learn more at Cardratings.com | Learn more at Cardratings.com | Learn more at Cardratings.com |
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card vs. Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card
The $99-annual-fee Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card card is a watered-down version of the Performance Card with a price to match. For $100 less per year, the card has a slightly lower rewards structure of 3 points per $1 spent on Southwest Airlines® purchases, 2 points per $1 spent on Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partner purchases and 1 point per $1 spent on everyday purchases.
It also offers a lower annual points bonus of 6,000 to the Performance card’s 9,000 and instead of four upgraded boardings and 365 Wi-Fi credits, offers two “Early-Bird” check-ins, which means you’ll get checked in before the general public and have a better shot at an early boarding position. All other benefits, from TQP-earning potential to travel and purchase protections are the same. Anyone who flies Southwest with any regularity will likely find it worth the extra $100 to choose the Performance Business Card over the Premier for the extra value, four-times-a-year guaranteed early boarding and Wi-Fi credits.
Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card vs. Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card
If you fly semi-regularly for work, you may occasionally have to fly an airline other than Southwest. Or perhaps you want a business travel card that will help you earn rewards on a wide variety of travel options. The Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card fills that niche. For an annual fee of $95, the card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards® points, which can be used to book travel through Chase Travel℠ or transferred to travel loyalty partners and both options include Southwest Airlines.
You can take your points as cash back at a penny a piece or you can use points earned on this card to book travel through Chase at a 25% increase, making them worth 1.25 cents each. The card doesn’t offer any protection for your baggage, but it does offer trip cancellation and interruption insurance, primary auto rental coverage and cellphone insurance. The main consideration in choosing between this card and the Southwest Performance card is if you want flexibility with your rewards, or Southwest-specific perks.
Is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card right for you?
The Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card is right for someone who regularly flies the airline for work and wants to access the airline-specific card perks. If you fly roundtrip twice a year or less on the airline, you’ll get more value from another option.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is it to get a Southwest Business card?
Like most small business credit cards, the Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business card will require a hard credit check of your personal credit in order to be approved. And, like most rewards cards, you’ll likely need to have good to excellent credit to be approved. Generally this means a score of 670 or above on the FICO scoring range.
How many business cards does Southwest offer?
Southwest currently offers two cobranded credit cards in partnership with Chase: The Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Card and the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Business Card.
Does a Southwest business card earn a Companion Pass?
Neither of Southwest’s two business cards automatically grant a Companion Pass with ownership, but they can help expedite earning one through earning the welcome bonus and/or spending on the card.
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Please note that card details are accurate as of the publish date, but are subject to change at any time at the discretion of the issuer. Please contact the card issuer to verify rates, fees, and benefits before applying.
About the contributors
With more than four decades of experience, Adam B. Frankel covers a broad range of personal finance topics from managing money in the stock markets to tracking credit card strategies. His work has been featured in national personal finance sites including Forbes Advisor, MarketWatch, Quartz, and CardRatings.com.
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