Three for the Price of FREE: Flights for FinCon Orlando Booked With Southwest Companion Pass!

FinCon

I assume that most people reading my blog already know what FinCon is. For those of you who are not in the know, it is essentially a large meet up of personal finance bloggers. According to the FinCon website, it is “Where money and media meet: helping financial influencers and brands create better content, reach their audience, and make more money.” Sounds freakin’ awesome to me.

Last year, I was invited by my buddy Passive Income MD to go to last year’s FinCon in Dallas. But I decided to skip out on it because I didn’t even have a working blog (I was primarily a lurker and occasional commenter) and I was too late for the early bird special. Being selectively frugal, there was no way I’d be willing to pay full price ($599) for registration. Plus plane tickets, hotel accommodation, and more would have added additional costs.

Then I read various recaps from my favorite bloggers. Sounds like it was a lot of fun and I totally missed out! I could have met White Coat Investor, Physician on Fire, The Happy Philosopher, Future Proof MD, Wealthy Doc, and Dr. Cory S. Fawcett. An aside: back then I primarily read articles from physician bloggers, but now I read them all.

FinCon 2018

This year, I’m not missing out. In March, I purchased early bird registration tickets for the sale price of $299. I’m excited. The resort in which the conference will be held looks absolutely stunning. The schedule of events and list of speakers look fantastic. As a natural extrovert, I look forward to meeting IRL some of the folks I’ve been interacting with online.

Crispy Doc was able to round up more than fifty physician finance bloggers in his post here. I’m pretty sure not all of them will be at FinCon18, but I know that some of them will be. And it sounds like Crispy Doc is working on organizing a “Docs of Finance” dinner. Obviously, I’m down.

I’m looking forward to seeing all of my blogger friends. I’m sure Carl from 1500days will be organizing some kind of beer social. After all, FinCon18 does coincide with Oktoberfest… Prost!

 

Booking the flights

I booked three roundtrip flights from Southern California to Orlando for me, my wife, and our baby girl. We are all going!

All three tickets were “free” because we used Southwest Rapid Rewards to book the flights. A total of 27,000 points were used. Man, I love travel hacking!

Based on a valuation of 1.5 cents per point, I was able to redeem $180 dollars worth of flights for all three of us.

How did I manage to get 3 tickets at such a low number of points?

Here’s how:

• My wife’s ticket costed 27,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points. (She earned more than 60,000 points from a recent credit card sign up bonus.)
• My ticket was free because wifey has the Companion Pass. And since I’m her companion, I get to fly free (no additional points, just taxes & fees).
• Baby girl’s ticket was free because children under 2 years old who fly domestically are considered free “lap infants.”

What about the fees?

I know what you all are thinking. The flights were not totally free because of the $11.20 of taxes and fees. HOWEVER, this was reimbursed because I used my Citi Prestige to pay for it, which reimburses up to $250 of air travel credit annually. Currently, there is no promotional sign up bonus on the Citi Prestige card; therefore I would not recommend signing up for it now (hence no link).

Earning the Southwest Companion Pass

There are two ways you can earn the pass:

• Take 100 one-way qualifying flights on Southwest Airlines in a calendar year
• Earn 110,000 qualifying Southwest Rapid Rewards points in a calendar year

Unless you fly Southwest Airlines every 3.65 days or more, the first option is extremely difficult. For a vast majority of people, this is unattainable. Who has the time to take 100 flights in a year?

The second option is rather difficult too, but earning the companion pass can be made easier by scoring large sign up bonuses on Southwest Airline’s co-branded credit cards with Chase. There are three Southwest Rapid Rewards credit cards to choose from: Plus card ($69 annual fee), Premier card ($99 annual fee), and Business Premier ($99 annual fee). None of these are affiliate or referral links.

Occasionally, Chase will offer generous sign up bonuses on these cards. For instance, the Business Premier card has a sign up bonus of 60,000 points earned after spending $3,000 in the first three months. Both the personal Plus and Premier cards only have a sign up bonus of 40,000 points after spending $1,000 in the first there months.

For most non-Soutwest related purchases, every dollar spent earns one Southwest Rapid Rewards point.

Therefore, one can earn the companion pass by signing up for the Business Plus card and either personal card (Plus or Premier), meet the spending threshold for earning the sign up bonus on each card, and spend an additional $6,000 within the calendar year.

The breakdown in points

• 3,000 points (points earned from spending the $3,000 needed to earn the sign up bonus on the Business Premier in the first 3 months)
• 60,000 points (from Business Premier sign up bonus)
• 1,000 points (points earned from spending the $1,000 needed to earn the sign up bonus on either the personal Plus or Premier card in the first 3 months)
• 40,000 points (from Plus or Premier sign up bonus)
• 6,000 points (from additional $6,000 spent during the calendar year)

3,000 + 60,000 + 1,000 + 40,000 + 6,000 = 110,000 points needed to earn the companion pass

Alternatively, you can also…

• Sign up for all three cards, meet the required spending thresholds to earn the sign up bonus on all of them, then earn 140,000 points (more than the 110,000 required for earning the companion pass). However, this strategy is more complicated because you would have to space out your credit card applications. Chase typically does not approve more than 2 cards within a 30 day time period. Also, signing up for three cards results in having to pay for three annual fees (no bueno) and three hard inquiries on your credit report (which will temporarily lower your credit score). However, the spending requirement would be cut in half ($5,000 versus $10,000). Spending $5,000 in a calendar year is much more manageable for people.
• Or spend enough on Southwest Airlines flights to earn 110,000 Rapid Rewards points. Yeah, right. 

Important things to note

• Transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Southwest Rapid Rewards points DOES NOT qualify.
• You also cannot transfer points from one account (for example your spouse’s) to another hoping to meet the required 110,000 points. Transferring points from one account to another DOES NOT qualify.
• Finally, purchased points do not qualify

 

How I earned it

I earned the Southwest Companion Pass the easy way. It’s not fair because it wasn’t available to everyone.

As a Californian, I had access to a shortcut to the Companion Pass. I earned it with one single purchase.

This promotional offer was made available in October 2017 and ended on November 30, 2017.

Since I already had nearly twenty credit cards, I had my wife sign up for the Southwest card. Attracted to the 60,000 point offer, I had her apply for the Business Premier card.

Strategically, I had her apply toward the end of the promotional period in late November. That allowed us plenty of time to complete the spending requirement some time in January 2018. This is important because this version of the Companion Pass is only for the calendar year in which it was earned. For instance, if we had signed up for the card in October and completed the spending requirement in November, we would only be able to use the pass for the remaining one to two months of 2017. What a bummer that would have been. Instead, we earned the pass in January and we were able to use it throughout the entire twelve months of 2018.

To get the most bang for your buck, it’s best to earn the 110,000 points in the beginning of the calendar year.

 

Will I earn it again in 2019?

It depends.

We earned 60,000 qualifying points towards our next Companion Pass from the sign up bonus alone. And now we need to earn less than 50,000 points before December 2018 to earn it again for 2019.

If Chase increases the sign up bonus for one of the other cards (personal Plus and Premier) to 50,000, then it’s a no brainer. I’m going for it. We would be able to take multiple domestic trips across the country with our baby girl (still a lap infant) for free. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

But if the offers remain at 40,000 bonus points, then the answer isn’t as clear cut. We shall see…

 

Exploring Orlando

In addition to attending FinCon, we want to explore what Orlando has to offer.

We are planning to meet up with my best friend from residency and we are taking our families to Disney World. It should be a lot of fun!

Besides that, we don’t have any plans. I have a lot of time to do more research. Any suggestions for Orlando?

 

Your turn

Anybody else going to FinCon? Are you using cool travel hacks to get there? If you’re going, let me know in the comments below. I’d love to say “Hi!” 😀