Southwest Rapid Rewards is offering a potentially lucrative promotion for flights booked over the coming days, whereby members can earn double points on new flight bookings. When you factor everything in, the potential points earning rates here are insanely high.
Southwest incentivizing new flight bookings with bonus points
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards has a promotion offering double points for newly booked flights:
- Registration is required between September 17 and September 21, 2026, and prior to travel
- You must book your flight between September 18 and September 21, 2026
- You must fly between September 18 and December 16, 2026
- There’s no limit to how many bonus Rapid Rewards points you can earn
- Bonus Rapid Rewards points will post to your account within 72 hours of completing travel
- Bonus Rapid Rewards points don’t count toward A-List, A-List Preferred, or Companion Pass qualification
While previously booked tickets don’t qualify, keep in mind that Southwest doesn’t have change fees on most types of fares. So if you booked a ticket and the fare hasn’t changed, you can always rebook to take advantage of this offer.
How lucrative is this Southwest promotion?
How rewarding is this Southwest Rapid Rewards promotion? With this offer, you’d earn the following number of points:
- Rapid Rewards members ordinarily earn 14x points on Choice Extra fares, so will now earn 28x points
- Rapid Rewards members ordinarily earn 10x points on Choice Preferred fares, so will now earn 20x points
- Rapid Rewards members ordinarily earn 6x points on Choice fares, so will now earn 12x points
- Rapid Rewards members ordinarily earn 2x points on Basic fares, so will now earn 4x points
Southwest Rapid Rewards is a revenue based frequent flyer program, and personally I value these points at ~1.2 cents each. So by my valuation, you’re getting an incremental 2.4-16.8% return on your spending with this offer. That’s a pretty substantial bonus. Also keep in mind if you have A-List Preferred status, you earn a 100% bonus on the base points, meaning you could earn up to a staggering 42x points per dollar spent. That starts to be really attractive.
This doesn’t include the credit card rewards you earn for airfare spending, which can add up even more. If you book a Choice Extra fare, have A List-Preferred, and pay with the right credit card, you could be looking at earning 47x points per dollar spent, which is quite wild.
Bottom line
Southwest Airlines is offering double points for Rapid Rewards members who register and book flights by September 21, 2026, and travel by December 16, 2026.
This is potentially a generous promotion, especially given that many people can probably rebook travel to take advantage of this. Personally, I value this offer at an incremental 2.4-16.8% return. If you’re an A-List Preferred member, you could even earn up to 42x points per dollar spent, not even factoring in credit card rewards.
Do you plan on taking advantage of this Southwest double points promotion?
This is objectively a good offer, but I struggle to book SW with all the recent downgrades to their flying experience.
Outside of earning Companion Pass, which is a true value for anyone who flies with a partner consistently, I'd rather fly with AA or United where I feel less nickeled and dimed.