The Companion Pass is a Southwest perk that lets one designated person fly free with you (plus taxes) for the rest of the calendar year you earn it plus the following year. Earn it in January and you have almost two full years.

You earn it by hitting 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year. Almost nobody hits that from flying. Almost everybody who has one hit it by opening a Southwest personal card and a Southwest business card in the same quarter.

The order of operations matters. Chase applications, 5/24 window, minimum spend timing. If you're doing this, do it in January so the pass runs almost 24 months.

The math on a family of four flying Southwest twice a year is real. This is the redemption I recommend more than any other in domestic travel.