Southwest Premier Credit Card Review: Loyalty Is Rewarding

The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card succeeds where most budget airline credit cards fail: It gives you reasons to stay loyal.

This card’s ongoing benefits, including a generous anniversary bonus, let you earn free flights faster. If you spend a lot on Southwest flights, it could help you qualify for A-List status and the airline’s coveted Companion Pass faster, too. And unlike its cheaper sibling card, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card, it doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees.

» MORE: Which Southwest Airlines credit card should I get?

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card:  Basics

Card type: Airline.

Annual fee: $99.

Sign-up bonus: Earn up to 80,000 points. Earn 50,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. Earn an additional 30,000 points after you spend $10,000 on purchases in the first 9 months.

Ongoing rewards:

• 2 points per dollar spent on Southwest purchases and Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partner purchases.

• 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases.

NerdWallet values Southwest points at 1.6 centseach. This is a baseline value, drawn from real-world data on hundreds of economy routes, not a maximized value. In other words, you should aim for award redemptions that offer 1.6 cents or more in value from your Southwest points.

» MORE: Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards program: The complete guide

Foreign transaction fees: None.

Other benefits: 

• Anniversary bonus of 6,000 points every cardmember year.

• 1,500 tier-qualifying points for every $10,000 spent on the card each calendar year, up to 15,000 annually. Tier-qualifying points help you reach A-List or A-List Preferred status faster. Other points you earn won't help you qualify for these statuses.

» MORE: Benefits of Southwest Airlines credit cards

Calculate your rewards

To see if the rewards you'd earn on this card would make up for the annual fee, try our calculator:

Benefits of the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card

SOLID sign-up bonus

New cardholders get a nice sign-up bonus: Earn up to 80,000 points. Earn 50,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. Earn an additional 30,000 points after you spend $10,000 on purchases in the first 9 months. Depending on how you use those points, that could be enough for a couple of round-trip tickets. The bonus also gives you a great head start on the 125,000 points needed for the Companion Pass.

Anniversary bonus

This card automatically gives you 6,000 bonus points on every cardmember anniversary. You don't have to meet any spending requirement to earn this bonus. Depending on how you redeem your points, the bonus alone could give you enough value to cover the card's annual fee.

No foreign transaction fees

The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card doesn’t charge you extra when you’re making purchases abroad. That makes it an excellent pick for international travel. Though Southwest mostly flies domestic, it does offer service to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (and, of course, you're free to take the card with you abroad regardless of which airline you fly). Another goodie for globe-trotters: You can use Southwest’s More Rewards platform to book international flights to other destinations through partner airlines with points.

Fast track to Companion Pass and A-List status

The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card is especially valuable for Southwest diehards, because it puts them on the fast track to Southwest's sought-after loyalty benefits:

• Companion Pass: This pass lets one companion fly with you for free (except for taxes or fees) whenever you purchase or redeem points for a trip. One way to get the pass is to earn 125,000 qualifying points in a year. All points earned with the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card, including sign-up and anniversary bonuses, count toward the pass.

• A-List status: This gets you priority check-in, free same-day standby if you want to fly out earlier on the day of your scheduled flight, a 25% points bonus when purchasing eligible Southwest flights, and other benefits. You can qualify for the status by earning 35,000 "tier-qualifying points" in a calendar year. Ordinarily, the only way to earn tier-qualifying points is by actually flying Southwest. But the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card gives you 1,500 of these points for every $10,000 you spend, up to 15,000 points a year.

• A-List Preferred status: This gets you A-List perks, free in-flight Wi-Fi on equipped planes and a 100% points bonus when purchasing eligible Southwest flights (rather than just a 25% bonus). You can qualify for A-List Preferred by earning 70,000 tier-qualifying points in a calendar year; the tier-qualifying points you earn with the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card apply to this status, too.

With both Companion Pass and A-List/A-List Preferred status, once you earn them, they're good for the rest of the calendar year and the whole next year. Read more about qualifying for these benefits.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card: Drawbacks and alternatives

Annual fee isn't waived the first year

Many airline cards with comparable annual fees waive the fee in the first year, but the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card offers no such break. After you're approved for the card, you'll be billed for the $99 annual fee right away.

Limited bonus rewards

With the exception of select travel spending, you're not going to earn more than 1 point per dollar. If you're looking for a more robust rewards rate and are less concerned about loyalty, try the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. It offers an impressive 2 miles per dollar spent on all purchases. The miles can be redeemed at 1 cent apiece to cover a range of travel expenses.

No point transfers

With the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card, you can't transfer rewards to other loyalty programs. If you're looking for more flexibility, try the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card instead. On top of a generous sign-up bonus, it also offers 1:1 transfers to several loyalty programs, including Southwest. The annual fee is $95. Just keep in mind that points earned with this card and then transferred to Southwest don't count toward the Companion Pass or A-List status.

no premium benefits

Unlike some comparable airline cards in its price range, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card doesn't offer much in the way of premium benefits. However, the airline's top-tier offering, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card comes with an array of perks, including $75 in annual travel credit, up to four upgraded boardings a year and a 20% discount on in-flight purchases. It also has a heftier annual fee: $149.

Here's a look at how all three of the Southwest consumer cards compare:

» MORE: Which Southwest Airlines credit card should I get?

See how this card compares with offerings from other airlines by checking out our top airline cards page. For other rewards card options, see our roundup of the best credit cards of all types.

Should you get the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card?