Southwest is offering a 40% bonus on buying, gifting or transferring points through January 23rd.
The Promotion
Below are details of the promotion:
- Offer is valid between January 9, 2018, 12:00:01 a.m. CST and January 23, 2018, 11:59:59 p.m. CST.
- Member will receive 40% bonus points when they purchase a minimum of 5,000 Rapid Rewards® points in a single transaction.
- When the Member gifts or transfers 5,000 or more Rapid Rewards points in a single transaction, the recipient will receive 40% more points as bonus Rapid Rewards points
If you purchase the maximum allowed, you will receive 60,000 points plus 24,000 bonus points for a total of 84,000 points. The total cost is $1,650, about 1.96 cents per point.
Remember that you can only redeem Southwest points for a fixed amount – usually though not always for about 1.33 cents per point.
(SEE ALSO: Yes, you CAN get 2.55 cents per Southwest point!)
So obviously buying points at 1.96 cents per point and redeeming them at 1.33 cents per point is not a winning strategy! I’d say the only real opportunities where this might make sense is if you have multiple accounts with points in them and don’t have enough to book your flights and need to consolidate. One option would be to have the individual accounts buy flights for individual people, but that doesn’t always work out for flying.
If you have questions about whether or not this makes sense for you, send me an email or post over in our free Points With a Crew miles and points Facebook group
Conclusion
Purchased points can represent great value sometimes. But as always, you need to crunch the numbers to ensure it makes sense. (SEE ALSO: When does buying airline miles make sense? ONLY in these 3 instances)
During the past two years, Southwest has offered bonus on purchase points about four times a year, and the maximum bonus ranged from 30% to 40%. So the current promotion is on the high side. As I always say, if you don’t have an urgent need for Southwest points, I would recommend waiting for the next promotion with higher bonus. I generally would only buy Southwest or any other type of miles or points if you have a specific short-term need for them
Buy, gift or transfer Southwest points here with a 40% bonus through January 23rd (I may receive a commission if you buy points through this link)
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Does it make sense if you have the companion pass? Purchase at 1.96 cents but redeem at 1.33 x 2?
Not really – companion pass works if you pay cash or points, so you’re likely better off using your cash to just buy a cash ticket (and then use your companion pass there)
Do they count towards the companion pass?
Tragically…. no
Seems great, would it work to transfer them from husband to wife?
Has Southwest ever done this before?
Southwest does this fairly regularly. You can transfer them from husband to wife, but I still wouldn’t recommend doing it except in extreme circumstances. The fee is too high to make it worth it in most cases
Good to know. Thanks
I frequently fly from Seattle to San Jose and back on wanna get away fares of 3K points for cash cost $69 or $79 flights, i.e., I frequently get better than 2 cents a point.