Chase now has the best offer ever for its cobranded Southwest credit cards:​ up to 100,000 points (50,000 points after spending $2,000 within the first 3 months and additional 50,000 points after spending $12,000 within the first year) for any of the three personal cards: Southwest RR Plus Visa ($69 annual fee), Southwest RR Premier Visa ($99 annual fee), and Southwest RR Priority Visa ($149 annual fee).

Other than some previous offers that gave you Companion Pass status right away (but with a much smaller points bonus), either of these three current personal card offers are also considered the easiest way to achieve the potentially highly lucrative Companion Pass status, which normally requires 125,000 points accumulated within one calendar year and allows you to take a companion for free as many times as you like.  If you time it right, you may get Companion Pass for almost two years.  This is how: apply one of the three personal cards right before the current offer ends (12/1/2021), and spend $25K (or less if you also spend in bonus categories) in the statement which ends after 1/1/2022 (you may adjust the due date so that the statement ending date falls on, e.g., 1/1/2022, so your spending rewards for December as well as the 100K signup bonus will count towards 2022 calendar year).  Spending $25K in one month might be a challenge for most of us, and we might consider options such as paying property taxes with the card, recharging your Amazon account balance which you will use down the road, or buying some gift cards for merchants you will shop anyway. Of course, there is nothing wrong to spread your spending over a few months or actually fly with Southwest to earn some points or even picking up a new Southwest Business card for either 60K or 80K points (make sure your signup bonus posts in 2022).  While you can't receive both signup bonuses on two personal Southwest cards, you can receive both if you open one personal card and one business card.  If you do think about signing up both personal and business cards, you might have two different strategies: (1) open one personal card and spend $2,000 to get 50K points, and Performance Business Card and spend $5,000 to get 80K, which puts you over the 125K points threshold, and of course you might want to spend another $10K on the personal card down the road to get the remaining 50K which is still a great deal; (2) open one personal card and spend $12,000 to get 100K points, and Premier Business Card and spend $2,000 to get 60K, which also puts you over the 125K threshold, but with double spending in the short term and no more worries in the longer term.  The bottom line is that you will earn Companion Pass for the rest of the calendar year (2022) in which you complete the 125K points qualification requirement and the following calendar year (2023).

The business cards are still offering the same bonuses as before: 60,000 points for Southwest RR Premier Business Visa ($99), and 80,000 points for Southwest RR Performance Business Visa ($199).

In addition, there are several new benefits introduced for these cards as below:

• Southwest RR Plus Visa ($69): (1) 2x points (increased from 1x) on local transit and commuting (including rideshare) & internet, cable, phone and select streaming services; (2) Two EarlyBird check-in per year;  (3) 25% back on inflight purchases.
• Southwest RR Premier Visa ($99): (1) 3x points on Southwest (increased from 2x); (2) 2x points (increased from 1x) on local transit and commuting (including rideshare) & internet, cable, phone and select streaming services; (3) Two EarlyBird check-in per year;  (4) 25% back on inflight purchases.  (5) receive 1,500 TQPs (Tier Qualifying Points) towards status for every $10K charged on the card, which is not a new benefit but the 10K annual TQP cap earned from the card is removed.
• Southwest RR Priority Visa ($149): (1) 3x points on Southwest (increased from 2x); (2) 2x points (increased from 1x) on local transit and commuting (including rideshare) & internet, cable, phone and select streaming services; (3) 25% back on inflight purchases; (4) unlimited Tier Qualifying Points (TQP) - receive 1,500 TQPs towards status for every $10K charged on the card, with annual TQP cap removed.
• Southwest RR Premier BUSINESS Visa ($99): (1) 3x points on Southwest (increased from 2x); (2) 2x points (increased from 1x) on local transit and commuting (including rideshare); (3) Two EarlyBird check-in per year;  (4) 25% back on inflight purchases; (5) Reimbursement of Southwest transfer fee (when you transfer your points to another Southwest RR member or a pre-selected charity), up to $500 per year; (6) unlimited Tier Qualifying Points (TQP) - receive 1,500 TQPs towards status for every $10K charged on the card, with annual TQP cap removed.
  
• Southwest RR Performance BUSINESS Visa ($199): (1) 4x points on Southwest (increased from 3x); (2) 2x points (increased from 1x) on local transit and commuting (including rideshare); (3) Reimbursement of Southwest transfer fee (when you transfer your points to another Southwest RR member or a pre-selected charity), up to $500 per year; (4) unlimited Tier Qualifying Points (TQP) - receive 1,500 TQPs towards status for every $10K charged on the card, with annual TQP cap removed.
  

Capital One has surprised us again with the improvement brought to its Capital One (C1) Miles rewards program.  The transfer ratio of the following six airline partners has been improved:

• Air Canada Aeroplan (1000:750) -> (1000:1000)
• British Airways Executive Club (1000:750)  -> (1000:1000)
• Emirates Skywards (1000:500)  -> (1000:1000)
• Flying Blue by Air France & KLM (1000:750)  -> (1000:1000)
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (1000:500)  -> (1000:1000)
• Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles (1000:750)  -> (1000:1000)

So in total there are 15 partners that have the industry-standard 1:1 transfer ratio and there are only 2 partners with a transfer ratio worse than that (EVA with 1000:750 and Accor with 1000:500).  In addition, JetBlue TrueBlue still has the old 1000:750 ratio but will leave C1 Miles program as of 10/24/21.  We have updated our featured review comparing five rewards programs offering flexible miles/points transfer feature.  Capital One has come a long way in terms of improving its program.  Before 2018, we considered C1 Miles as "fake miles" as they can only be redeemed up to a fixed value of 1 cent per point for various options including travel rewards.  In 2018, the frequent traveler miles/points transfer feature was introduced with 12 partners, most of which had a sub-standard ratio of 1000:750 so our valuation for C1 Miles was 1.1 cents per point.  In April 2021, the transfer feature was enhanced by adding a few new partners as well as making transfer ratio 1000:1000 for more than half of the partners and we started valuing C1 Miles at 1.3 cents per point.  Now with this new enhancement, we finally feel that C1 Miles are as valuable as the big three programs offered by credit card issuers: Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou and our current valuation for all four programs is the same at 1.5 cents per point.

Obviously, with this increased valuation, Venture Card and Spark Miles Business Card, both offering 2x Miles (=3% travel rewards) on everything with a $95 annual fee, are becoming better than ever before.  Venture Card now takes the top spot from Citi Premier as the Best Credit Card for Rewards and also jumps from #6 to #3 on our Top 10 Best Credit Cards list.  On the other hand, Spark Miles is considered the best business card for spending, alongside with Amex Blue Business Plus.  Below is the before/after comparison of our Top 10 list.