Southwest Rapid Rewards Changes, Slaying the Amex Pop-up, Hotel Confession

Southwest Rapid Rewards Changes: If you’re a member of Southwest Rapid Rewards, you probably got an email yesterday with some good and bad news. The good news: Points will no longer expire after 24 months of no activity. The bad news: The companion pass threshold is now 125,000 points (instead of 110,000 points). These changes begin in 2020, so it affects people who are already working toward the companion pass right now in hopes of completing the threshold in January. Ugh! This isn’t the end of the world, but it doesn’t make our hobby any easier. As a reminder, you can only have one personal Southwest credit card at a time. If you have a small business, you can earn a companion pass easier by getting the business version along with a personal version.

a large building with palm trees and a beach — Photo by Gabriel Ghnassia on Unsplash

Finally! I Slayed the Amex Pop-up: Mark from Miles to Memories wrote about how he finally got a new Amex approval without the dreaded Amex pop-up warning. He spent about $25,000 on his existing Amex cards in the past 6 months. I was hoping to get cleared by spending a lot less than that, but so far I haven’t re-applied for any Amex cards.

I Don’t Care What Hotel We Stay In: See this confession from Your Mileage May Vary. For the most part, I agree. The exception is when we are going on vacation and the hotel is our destination, like our trips to Hyatt Regency Lost Pines or Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak. But if we’re going to tour a city, free hotels take priority.

Readers, is anyone at the Chicago Seminars this weekend?

Have a great weekend!