Originally posted by inspoke:
If you spend more than 110k a year on a credit card and want to travel the US and some near international destinations, the best card to have is the Southwest AIrlines Visa. The reason for the 110k threshold is that, if you spend at that level in a calendar year, you get a companion pass. A companion pass allows a person of your choice to travel with you on any SW flight that you are on. The pass is good from the day 110k points have posted to your Rapid Rewards account through the end of the FOLLOWING year. You must requalify on an annual basis. The companion can be changed up to 3 times per year. Since Jan 1, my family of 4 (i have 2 companion passes) has flown from TUL to San Diego, Seattle, Aruba, Houston and Phoenix roundtrip for the cost of the taxes only. Wife and I are currently in Dominican Republic by using the points and companion pass. Southwest recently starting flying here. I qualified for the second one by taking out 2 SW Visas in my wife's name in a short time period. Each offered 50k points once i met the minimum spend of 3k in 3 months. Only had to come up with an additional 4k in spending to get companion pass for my wife. I won't requalify for the second one this year so it will only be good through the end of 2015.
For 2015, I will requalify one pass by spending 110k on it then I will shift spending to other cards to maximize my travel return. There are entire websites dedicated to this topic. One of my favorites is frugaltravelguy.com. Check it out. He has his top 30 rated cards listed.