Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card

This card has been a key piece of our Companion Pass strategy over the years, and both my husband and I have held it at different points. The 4X earning rate on Southwest purchases and the strong welcome bonus make it one of the fastest ways to rack up points toward the 135,000-point Companion Pass threshold, especially if you catch it during one of its occasional elevated offers, since it's strong enough on its own to get a single applicant most (or all) of the way there.

Beyond the points, it's genuinely useful for how we travel as a family: the Preferred seat at booking and Extra Legroom upgrade come in handy on longer flights, and the Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit basically pays for itself every four years. The $299 annual fee is real, so it's not a card to hold just to have it — but if Southwest is a regular part of your travel plans and you're working toward (or maintaining) a Companion Pass, this card pulls a lot of weight. If you want the full strategy for how we use cards like this one to earn the pass, check out our Companion Pass guide.

The Performance Business card's welcome bonus has held at 80,000 points after $5,000 spend for much of its history, but Chase has periodically run a meaningfully elevated 120,000-point version — most notably in the fall of 2024 and again in the fall of 2025 — sometimes structured as a two-part bonus with additional spend required. Because this card's standard bonus alone can get a single applicant close to (or, during an elevated offer, well past) the Companion Pass qualifying threshold on its own, it's worth watching for one of these elevated windows if you're chasing the pass without opening multiple cards.