Transferring Chase Ultimate Reward Points to Southwest for Companion Pass Status

This is post #5 of my blog series on the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass.

Series includes:

1. What is a Southwest Airlines Companion Pass?
2. How to Earn a Southwest Airlines Companion Pass
3. Getting Two Southwest Credit Cards to Count Towards the Companion Pass
4. Earning Partner Points to Count Towards the Companion Pass
5. Transferring Chase Ultimate Reward Points to Southwest for Companion Pass Status
6. Getting the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass for 2014 and 2015 Calendar Year
7. Using the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass on Southwest and AirTran flights
8. Changing your Companion with the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass
9. Top 20 Questions for the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass

In my blog post last week on Partner Points that Count Towards the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass I listed out all the hotel loyalty partners where you can transfer your points to Southwest and have the points count towards the companion pass. In this post I specifically stated that “Points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards DO NOT count towards the companion pass.” I really do not know why hotel transfers count yet Ultimate Reward transfers do not even though they are a loyalty partner.

There is, however, a roundabout way to have your Ultimate Reward points count as qualifying points, but as a heads up the value of each point will be devalued when you go this route.

As I mentioned last week, you can transfer your points from Club Carlson, Hyatt, Marriott, Wyndham, and Choice Hotels to Southwest and those points count towards the 110,000 points needed to earn the companion pass. However, Chase Ultimate Rewards is only a partner with Hyatt and Marriott. So you can first transfer your points to Hyatt and/or Marriott, and then transfer your Hyatt and/or Marriott points to Southwest. UPDATE: POINTS TRANSFERRED FROM HOTEL PARTNERS NO LONGER COUNT.

You Chase Ultimate Reward points transfer to all loyalty partners at a 1:1 ratio. If you remember from my prior post, the transfer rate of Hyatt points to Southwest is MUCH better than Marriott points to Southwest. So the best way to earn the companion pass by utilizing your Chase Ultimate Reward points is first to transfer them to Hyatt and then transfer them to Southwest. As I posted last week:

• • 5,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points = 5,000 Hyatt points = 2,400 Southwest points
  • 50,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points = 50,000 Hyatt points = 30,000 Southwest points

This means 50,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points is giving you a fixed value of $500 to be used on a Southwest “Wanna Get Away” ticket. While this is devaluing your Ultimate Rewards points drastically, it actually might be beneficial for you to earn that companion pass status. Remember, your companion flies for free, so that $500 can really turn into $1,000.

Credit card to help earn the companion pass:  As mentioned previously, there are three different Southwest cards – ALL of them have the same bonus offer after meeting the minimum spend requirements, but different annual fees and annual bonuses. You can view all three cards and the differences in this prior blog post. You can learn more about all Airline credit card offers here.

Disclosure: These post contains affiliate links. While my goal for you is to travel on a deal, this is one I highly support as I’ve had the companion pass for many years!