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Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card sign-up bonus: 85,000 Rapid Rewards points for a limited time

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card card art
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card

The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card sign-up bonus has just been increased to 85,000 points.

  • You’ll earn 85,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
  • The current welcome bonus offers more points than we remember this card ever offering.
  • This is a limited time offer, and we don’t yet know the end date. (We’ll update this post if we learn of an end date.)

Here’s what you need to know about the current offer on the Rapid Rewards Priority card.

Best sign-up bonus: Online 85k Rapid Rewards points offer.

Here’s the best bonus offer currently available on the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card card art

Learn how to apply.
Annual fee: $149

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card sign-up bonus

bonus_miles_full

This is the best bonus on this card that we can recall, and it’s 10,000 points better than the bonus offered in late 2023.

More about this card


Benefit highlights:
7,500 anniversary points after your cardmember anniversary each year.
25% back on all Southwest in-flight purchases.
4 upgraded boardings per year.
$75 annual Southwest travel credit.
1,500 tier-qualifying points for every $5,000 you spend.
No foreign transaction fees.

Rewards:
3x on Southwest Airlines purchases made directly with the airline.
2x on Rapid Rewards hotels and car rental partner purchases.
2x on local transit and commuting, including rideshare.
1x on other purchases.
Rewards are earned as Rapid Rewards points.

Learn more:
See all bonuses available for new Southwest credit cards in our overview of Southwest Airlines credit card welcome bonuses.

How to use Southwest Rapid Rewards points

The Southwest Rapid Rewards points you’ll earn with the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card are incredibly easy to use for flights. Here’s what we like best about Rapid Rewards points:

  • You’ll get consistent value. On average, you’ll get about 1.3-1.4 cents per point of value from each of your points. (10,000 points can get you a flight with a cash price of around $130-$140.
  • Rapid Rewards points don’t expire.
  • If you cancel your flight, you get your points back. Any Southwest flight can be canceled up to 10 minutes prior to departure. If the flight was booked with your Rapid Rewards points, the points will be returned to you account.

To use Southwest Rapid Rewards points for flights, simply select “Points” when booking any flight at Southwest.com. You can also toggle between seeing flights priced in dollars and flights priced in points during the booking process.

Screenshot of the main flight booking panel from Southwest.com. The option to book with points (as opposed to dollars) is selected. The booking panel has fields for departure and arrival city, departure and arrival date and promo code.
Simply choose “Points” when searching for flights at Southwest.com to use your Rapid Rewards points.

My take on the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card welcome bonus

This is a great bonus, full stop. If you’re comparing the bonus to the annual fee, you might be tempted to go for the bonus on the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card, which has a lower annual fee, but there are good reasons to go for the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card, despite the higher annual fee.

If you fly Southwest consistently, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card is likely the better card for you. For the card’s $149 annual fee, you’ll get an account anniversary bonus of 7,500 points and a $75 annual Southwest travel credit. Those two perks alone are worth more than the card’s annual fee, plus you’ll get 4 upgraded boardings per year and can earn A-list tier-qualifying points with the Priority card.

Verdict: If you fly Southwest Airlines consistently and don’t already have a Southwest credit card, you should jump on the current limited-time bonus.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card card art

Learn how to apply.
Annual fee: $149

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card sign-up bonus

bonus_miles_full

This is the best bonus on this card that we can recall, and it’s 10,000 points better than the bonus offered in late 2023.

More about this card


Benefit highlights:
7,500 anniversary points after your cardmember anniversary each year.
25% back on all Southwest in-flight purchases.
4 upgraded boardings per year.
$75 annual Southwest travel credit.
1,500 tier-qualifying points for every $5,000 you spend.
No foreign transaction fees.

Rewards:
3x on Southwest Airlines purchases made directly with the airline.
2x on Rapid Rewards hotels and car rental partner purchases.
2x on local transit and commuting, including rideshare.
1x on other purchases.
Rewards are earned as Rapid Rewards points.

Learn more:
See all bonuses available for new Southwest credit cards in our overview of Southwest Airlines credit card welcome bonuses.

Frequently asked questions

Do the sign-up bonus points on this card count toward companion pass?

Yes. The bonus points you earn with this card’s new cardmember incentive count toward companion pass.

Should I get the Plus or Priority card?

If you fly Southwest consistently, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card will provide more value on an ongoing basis. These two cards currently have the same sign-up bonus.

About the author

  • Aaron Hurd

    Aaron Hurd is a credit card, travel rewards, and loyalty program expert. Over the past 15 years, he has authored over a thousand expert contributions published by leading outlets including WSJ, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, NerdWallet, The Points Guy, Bankrate, CNET, and many others. He has also served in consulting roles for many of these same outlets, designing content strategy, hiring teams of teams of editors and contributors, developing thought-leadership pieces, and ghost-editing for senior editors. Aaron is well-known in the miles and points community and regularly presents about travel rewards at conferences like the Chicago Seminars and Minnebar. Aaron has enjoyed the game of optimizing credit card rewards since getting his first credit card shortly after he turned 18. He started learning about credit cards and travel rewards from the (now defunct) FatWallet Finance forums and FlyerTalk. He holds more than 40 open credit cards and has first-hand experience with almost every major credit card product.

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