I received an email from Southwest this morning letting me know that if I spend $5,000 by the end of the calendar year on my Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Card, I’ll earn 3,000 bonus Southwest points. While this was a targeted email with a personalized code to enroll, if you have a Southwest credit card, make sure to sift through your email and find this promotion. With the current redemption structure, 3,000 bonus points is worth a flat $50.
Spending $5,000 these days has become considerably easy due to purchasing Vanilla Reloads. I typically find myself purchasing $5,000 of VRs a month. While my Southwest credit card is not my card of choice for purchasing VRs, due to this promotion I will ensure to use this card for my November purchases.
When using your Southwest Airlines credit card for making Vanilla Reload purchases, the $5,000 in purchases will equal 8,040 points (5,040 + 3,000 bonus points). This currently equals a flat $134 towards a Wanna Getaway fare. Since the cost to purchase $5,000 worth of Vanilla Reloads is $40, I’ll be making a fixed return of 1.88%. If you like purchasing Vanilla Reloads with a fixed redemption program (for example, Southwest, CapitalOne Venture, US Bank Cash Plus, Barclaycard Arrival, Chase Freedom), the Southwest card is the best option with the bonus points. You can check out the benefits of all credit cards when purchasing Vanilla Reload cards in this prior blog post.
While I purely focused on Vanilla Reload cards, the $5,000 worth of purchases can be on anything. Did anyone else receive this email? Or an email offering a different bonus?
Terms: To be eligible for this bonus offer, you must either call the phone number or log on to the website referenced in this offer and enroll using the specified enrollment code by 12/15/13. You will qualify for and receive your bonus if you make Purchases with your credit card that total an amount at or above the specified target amount during the promotional period. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks after qualifying for bonus points to post to your account. (“Purchases” do not include balance transfers, cash advances, cash-like charges such as travelers checks, foreign currency, and money orders, any checks that access your account, overdraft advances, interest, unauthorized or fraudulent charges, or fees of any kind, including an annual fee, if applicable.) Credit card product changes during the promotional period will forfeit this bonus offer. To qualify for this bonus offer, account must be open and not in default at the time of fulfillment. This promotional offer is non-transferable and applies only to the account ending in the last 4 digits referenced in this offer.
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My GF got a mailer 2 weeks ago for 3000 points for $3000. She rarely uses that card.
Got the mailer a couple of weeks ago as well
Chase Hyatt cards has a similar but better offer. 5,000 bonus Hyatt points after spending $3,000 before 12/31.
I received this offer and an offer from chase for 5,000 British Air bonus Avios for spending $5,000 on my Chase BA Visa by Nov. 30. I thought the BA offer is more valuable for me and ends sooner. So, I’m starting with that one. Not sure if I will get back to the Southwest offer or not.
So you are looking at a net earning of $86 for manufacturing $3000 spending.
If you spend $3000 on a MileagePlus Club card, you’d earn 4500 miles, worth about $90, without the hassle…
Seems really weak to me. How about 10k or 15k for that kind of spend. It think I would prefer to just buy the 3k points if I needed them that bad. I guess when you figure in the spend points per dollar plus the bonus it’s not all bad but I think there are better offers out there.
I got this offer, charged $5,000 and got my 5,000 points and 3,000 bonus points. No complaints on this!