Of course how much value a Companion Pass holds is going to depend on how much you use it.

If you're used to redeeming points on different airlines, it may be a bit hard to grasp the potential value of the Companion Pass.

Here's an overview.

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You'll earn 135,000 points (for $3500 value!)

Any of these paths to earning a Companion Pass will also earn you 135,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points.

But what are those points worth?

Southwest doesn't have a flat rate for how much it costs to fly with points.

Just like with cash prices, the price in points is going to vary widely with supply and demand.

In the case of Southwest, points prices are tied pretty closely to the cash prices so points have a pretty consistent value. There's some variation but most people say it's about 1.3 cents to 1.5 cents per point.

That means even at the 1.3 cents per point -- and you earned 135,000 points -- you'll be able to book over $1750 of Southwest flights with those points.

Because you can book your companion onto those flights with you, you can book another $1750 of Southwest flights for your Companion.

That's $3500 of Southwest flights for opening 2 credit cards! That's a great return on investment. You'll be able to choose your own adventure and use those to fly wherever you want that Southwest flies.

If you are tied to flying over holiday weekends, you will pay more for your Southwest flights. There's no way to avoid that. I do have a few tricks I share later in this course but sometimes prices are just high.

But you'll have plenty of options on how you can use your 135,000 points. You can use them to fly a lot of cheap flights or a few expensive flights. Or a combo.

Regardless of how you use your points, if you use up your 135,000 points and have taken along a Companion, you've gotten $3500 of Southwest flights covered for the cost of two credit card annual fees.

You can see in this example that this flight would cost $168 from Chicago to Denver if you book Basic.

Booked with points, it will cost 12,000 points.

That comes out to 1.4 cents per point, right in the range that we'd expect.

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But Southwest is more expensive!

Honestly, I agree. Southwest prices definitely seem to be climbing and you can often find any given route cheaper on another airline.

If you're flying to popular destinations over holidays (like Costa Rica), you might pay 60,000 points round trip. When Southwest releases new dates for booking, prices usually seem exceptionally high.

But you'll see sales, too. One year we snagged an 11,000 point round trip flight from Chicago to Cancun.

You can find a lesson later in the course on how to help get the cheapest Southwest prices and those strategies will help you get cheaper Southwest pricing.

But while it is expensive, it is also rare that Southwest is 2x more expensive than any other airline.

So for us, we honestly don't even compare anymore. This reduces the mental load of decision making for trips for us. We just fly Southwest and if I run out of Southwest points, I'd make a new plan.

I personally don't mix and match my domestic flight strategy and try to optimize every flight because I'm trying to do this the easy way.

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Not all airports are created equal

Now one reason I'm so committed to this strategy is that we are based in Chicago and we have a lot of Southwest flight options. My sister is also very committed to this strategy and she lives in Denver, which also has a lot of Southwest flights.

If you live near these airports you'll have the most options:

If you don't know the Southwest routes near you, you can check out flightconnections.com or run sample searches on Southwest's website to see what kind of routing you would have.

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You can change your Companion 3x

I love this perk! We don't use it much but if you are single and want to be able to bring different friends on different trips -- you can change your Companion three times each calendar year!

This adds extra value to the pass as well.