What I Liked and Hated About the Southwest Priority Card

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The Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card has long been pitched as the "power user" option for Southwest loyalists. Higher annual fee, richer perks, and the promise that if you fly Southwest a few times a year, the card should more than pay for itself. In reality, my experience has been a mix of genuinely useful benefits, creeping fees, and small but frustrating gotchas that matter a lot when you are stuck at a gate or trying to squeeze value out of every point. Here is what I honestly liked and hated about living with the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card as a frequent domestic traveler.

The Basics: What This Card Actually Offers

The Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card is issued by Chase and sits at the top of Southwest’s family of personal cards. As of mid 2026, it charges one of the highest annual fees in the Southwest consumer lineup, and that fee has risen in recent years, which is one of the big pain points for many cardholders. In exchange, you get a package of ongoing perks: an annual Southwest travel credit, anniversary Rapid Rewards points, upgraded boardings, and earnings that are geared toward people who regularly fly the airline.

On the earning side, the card offers elevated points on Southwest purchases, with lower multipliers on select everyday categories and one point per dollar on everything else. In practical terms, if you buy a 350 dollar roundtrip ticket from Dallas to Denver directly through Southwest, the card’s bonus categories can generate a noticeable stack of Rapid Rewards points versus putting that same purchase on a generic 2 percent cash back card. Those points then translate into future flights, making the card function almost like a punch card for regular Southwest travelers.

Where the card tries to distinguish itself is through its bundled benefits. Every cardmember year, you receive a set number of anniversary Rapid Rewards points and a fixed Southwest travel credit that automatically refunds eligible Southwest purchases, like airfare or fees, until you hit the annual limit. You also get several upgraded boardings per year that can move you into the coveted A1 to A15 boarding positions when available. On paper, this combination is compelling, especially if you are consistently on Southwest metal a few times per year.

However, the value of these benefits depends heavily on how you travel. If you live near a Southwest stronghold like Dallas Love Field, Denver, Phoenix, or Chicago Midway and routinely book Wanna Get Away or Wanna Get Away Plus fares, it is not hard to use the travel credit and boardings. But if Southwest is only an occasional option where you live, the same perks can easily sit unused while you continue to pay a high annual fee.

What I Genuinely Liked: Credits, Points and Real Perks

The single most tangible perk for me is the annual Southwest travel credit. Each cardmember year, eligible Southwest purchases made with the card automatically get reimbursed until you reach the credit cap. That includes things like airfare, taxes and fees on award tickets, and add-ons such as upgraded boardings purchased directly from Southwest. On a typical year, I might buy a couple of long-weekend trips from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Oakland, spending roughly 200 to 250 dollars per roundtrip. The first 75 dollars of those charges being offset by the credit instantly softens the sting of the annual fee.

Next is the anniversary points deposit. Each year after your account anniversary, a lump sum of Rapid Rewards points posts to your account, no spending required. Based on average Southwest redemption values, those anniversary points can often cover a one-way flight on a shorter domestic route, such as Houston to New Orleans or Phoenix to San Diego, or at least a healthy discount off a more expensive itinerary like Baltimore to Los Angeles around peak holidays. It feels like an automatic mini voucher that shows up whether or not you put heavy spend on the card that year.

The upgraded boardings benefit has also been surprisingly useful in very specific scenarios. You are reimbursed for a limited number of upgraded boardings per cardmember year when you pay for them with your Priority card. I have used these on packed Friday evening flights from Chicago Midway to Denver and on early Monday morning returns from Orlando, where boarding position can mean the difference between a cramped middle seat and a decent aisle near the front. Buying an A1 to A15 boarding position at the gate and then seeing the charge automatically reimbursed later makes the card feel like it is actively smoothing out some of the roughest parts of the Southwest experience.

Finally, the fact that all the points you earn, including the welcome bonus and your anniversary points, count toward the Companion Pass has been a major upside. For example, putting a few thousand dollars of everyday spend on the card in the same year as a large welcome bonus has helped me cross the Companion Pass threshold sooner. That has meant several trips where my partner flew for only the cost of taxes and fees on routes like San Diego to Maui (back when Southwest was operating Hawaii flights from the West Coast) or Denver to Nashville, which easily saved several hundred dollars per year.

Where the Card Fell Short: Rising Fees and Narrow Use Cases

For all the things I liked, there is no getting around the reality that the annual fee has marched higher over time, to the point where many cardholders now question whether the math still works. When the card carried a lower fee, it was relatively easy to justify on the strength of the travel credit plus anniversary points alone. As the fee has crept upward, you increasingly need to be sure you will use the upgraded boardings and other perks to come out clearly ahead, which is not a given for more casual travelers.

The card is also incredibly Southwest-centric, which sounds obvious but becomes more frustrating if your home airport sees service reductions or if Southwest’s schedules simply do not line up with your life. I felt this acutely during a year when most of my work trips shifted to cities that were better served by other carriers. I kept paying the card’s fee, but my only Southwest flying that year was a single leisure trip from Oakland to Honolulu, which did not come close to extracting maximum value from the benefits. With no lounges, no broader airline fee reimbursements, and relatively weak non-travel category earnings, the card felt like a liability in my wallet for that entire stretch.

I also found that the earnings structure, while fine for Southwest bookings, is not particularly competitive for everyday expenses compared with flat-rate cash back cards or transferable points cards. For instance, putting a 600 dollar grocery run or a 1,200 dollar home repair on a 2 percent cash back card can be simpler and sometimes more valuable than earning Rapid Rewards points that are only redeemable with one airline. Over a full year of mixed spending, the opportunity cost of funneling everything through the Priority card becomes more obvious if you value flexibility.

Another subtle downside: if you are working toward status with multiple airlines or juggling several rewards ecosystems, locking significant spend into a co-branded card like this can fragment your strategy. In one year, I ended up with enough Southwest points for some decent domestic trips but came up short on minimum spend needed to unlock a lucrative limited-time transfer bonus with another bank. The net result was feeling overcommitted to Southwest in a way that did not fully match how my travel patterns evolved over time.

The Upgraded Boarding Reality: Helpful but Not Always Seamless

On paper, the upgraded boarding benefit is one of the splashiest perks. In practice, my feelings about it are mixed. When it works, it is fantastic: you log in around 24 hours before departure or walk up to the gate, pay to move yourself into the A1 to A15 boarding group, and later see the charge credited back on your statement, up to your annual limit. On crowded leisure routes like Denver to Orlando during spring break or Phoenix to Chicago for summer holidays, that can significantly improve your odds of securing overhead bin space and sitting with family or friends.

That said, these upgraded seats are capacity-controlled and only offered when available. On heavily booked flights, especially during peak seasons around Thanksgiving or Christmas, I have frequently logged in to find no upgraded boardings left, even though I was ready to pay for them. In those moments, one of the card’s marquee perks was simply unusable. When that happens multiple times in a year, the perceived value of the benefit drops sharply.

I have also encountered occasional hiccups with the automatic statement credits. On one itinerary where I purchased upgraded boarding for several passengers on the same reservation, the credits did not post for all the charges, even though they were purchased with the Priority card as required. It eventually got sorted out after phone calls to both Chase and Southwest, but it underscored how dependent this benefit is on clean back-end tracking. When you are juggling boarding passes at the gate in Dallas or Baltimore, you do not want to be thinking about whether your credit will actually apply correctly a few weeks later.

The bigger issue is that upgraded boarding is most useful for people who truly dislike the scramble of open seating and fly at busy times. If you often travel midweek, on mid-morning or late-evening departures, or during shoulder seasons, regular check in at the 24-hour mark often yields perfectly acceptable B-group boarding positions. In that case, the incremental value of upgraded boarding is modest, and the benefit starts to feel more like a marketing flourish than an essential part of the card’s value proposition.

Real-World Value Test: A Year of Trips

To see whether the card held up in practice, I looked back at one particularly busy year of Southwest-heavy travel. I flew four roundtrips on Southwest that year: Denver to Phoenix in February, Chicago Midway to Las Vegas in April, Houston to Cancun in early summer, and Oakland to Denver around the winter holidays. Total cash fares and taxes came to just over 1,600 dollars, all charged to the Priority card.

First, the annual Southwest travel credit wiped out the first chunk of airfare early in the year on my Denver to Phoenix ticket. Next, the anniversary points that posted just before my Houston to Cancun trip were enough to discount that international itinerary by a meaningful amount, saving me roughly the equivalent of a domestic one-way fare. On my Chicago to Las Vegas and Oakland to Denver flights, I used the card’s upgraded boardings benefit to secure A-group spots on the most crowded segments, which genuinely improved those travel days by ensuring overhead bin space and better seat selection.

By the end of that cardmember year, I had effectively received the value of the travel credit, the full value of the anniversary points in real redemptions, and the comfort and convenience of premium boarding positions on at least a couple of jam-packed flights. When I compared that to the annual fee, I came out ahead, even before counting the points I earned on the 1,600 dollars in spend. For a traveler with a similar pattern of four to six Southwest roundtrips a year, especially from a hub like Denver or Dallas where fares can be competitive, the card’s math can still be compelling.

In contrast, the following year I only booked one Southwest trip, a simple roundtrip from Los Angeles to San Jose for under 250 dollars. I barely used the travel credit, let the upgraded boardings go unused, and ended up redeeming the anniversary points on a cheap off-peak ticket where the cents-per-point value was not great. That year, the card clearly did not justify its annual fee, and I would have been better off with a no-fee card plus a flexible travel rewards product.

Comparing It to Other Southwest and Travel Cards

Another way to evaluate what I liked and disliked about the Priority card is to compare it against its siblings and popular alternatives. Within the Southwest lineup, lower-fee cards tend to offer fewer anniversary points and no travel credit, but they still provide some boosted earn on Southwest purchases and count their points toward the Companion Pass. For someone who flies Southwest only twice a year on cheaper domestic routes like San Diego to Las Vegas or Nashville to Chicago, a lower-fee Southwest card can be a better fit because there is less pressure to "use up" perks each year.

When measured against general travel cards, the trade-offs become sharper. With a flexible travel rewards card, you might earn transferable points at higher rates on dining, groceries or online shopping, then redeem those points for flights with multiple airlines or transfer to hotel partners. In one year, I found myself redeeming those flexible points for flights on carriers that served smaller airports better than Southwest did, such as flying into Bozeman for a Montana road trip or into Burlington, Vermont for a fall foliage weekend. In those cases, the Priority card’s co-branded nature was a limitation rather than a strength.

If your goal is pure simplicity and cash value, a straightforward 2 percent cash back card can outperform the Southwest Priority card on all non-Southwest purchases. A family that spends thousands of dollars a year on groceries, gas, home improvement and kids’ activities might be better off taking simple cash back and then shopping across airlines for the best fares on each trip, instead of being locked into earning Rapid Rewards on everything.

This does not mean the Priority card is a bad product. It means it is a very specific tool that works best for a particular type of traveler: someone who is already committed to Southwest as their primary domestic carrier, lives near an airport where Southwest has strong schedules, and takes enough trips each year to reliably use both the travel credit and the upgraded boarding perk while valuing Companion Pass progress. If that profile does not sound like you, the card can quickly feel like an expensive ornament in your wallet.

The Takeaway

After several years of holding and actively using the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card, my feelings are split. I genuinely appreciate the annual travel credit, the anniversary points, and the upgraded boarding perk when I am flying packed routes at peak times. In my strongest Southwest years, those benefits more than offset the annual fee and made my travel days a bit less stressful, especially when flying out of busy airports like Denver, Chicago Midway or Las Vegas.

At the same time, the card’s rising annual fee, highly airline-specific nature, and occasional hiccups with benefits make it a poor fit in leaner Southwest years or for travelers whose plans frequently shift to other airlines. The value proposition is not automatic. You have to be honest about how often you really fly Southwest, whether you will consistently use the travel credit and upgraded boardings, and how much you value progress toward the Companion Pass compared with more flexible rewards.

If you are a true Southwest loyalist who sees the airline as your default for domestic trips, the Priority card can still be a strong companion in your wallet. It turns regular paid tickets and even some fees into extra points and better boarding positions, which over the course of a year can add up to real savings and comfort. But if your travel is more scattered across airlines or you only end up on Southwest once or twice a year, you may find that what I liked about the card does not show up often enough in your own life, while what I disliked the most, the high annual fee, shows up like clockwork on your statement.

FAQ

Q1. Is the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card worth it if I only fly twice a year?
For most travelers who fly Southwest only once or twice a year, the card is a tougher sell. You may struggle to fully use the travel credit and upgraded boardings, and the anniversary points may not offset the higher annual fee as cleanly as a lower-fee Southwest card or a simple cash back card would.

Q2. Do the anniversary Rapid Rewards points really have meaningful value?
Yes, anniversary points can often cover a shorter one-way flight or significantly discount a longer itinerary, especially on routes with lower cash fares. Their exact value depends on how you redeem them, but they generally function like a small travel voucher that posts automatically each year you keep the card.

Q3. How hard is it to actually use the upgraded boarding benefit?
It is easy to use when seats are available, but availability can be limited on very full flights and busy travel dates. On some peak departures, especially around holidays, you may find that the upgraded boarding option is sold out, which means you cannot tap into one of the card’s signature perks for that flight.

Q4. Does the travel credit work on award tickets paid with points?
In many cases, the credit can apply to taxes and certain eligible fees charged to your Priority card even when the base fare is booked with Rapid Rewards points. This can help reduce the out-of-pocket cost of award travel, though the specifics may vary and you should always check your statement to confirm how credits are applied.

Q5. How does this card compare to other Southwest cards for earning the Companion Pass?
The Priority card is strong for Companion Pass seekers because its welcome bonus, anniversary points and everyday earnings all count toward the qualifying total. However, some travelers pair a lower-fee Southwest card with strategic spending or business versions of the card to reach the Companion Pass threshold without paying the highest annual fee every year.

Q6. Is it smart to put all of my everyday spending on this card?
That depends on your priorities. If you are deeply committed to Southwest and chasing the Companion Pass, concentrating spend here can help. If you value flexibility or want the best return on groceries, dining or other categories, a flexible travel or cash back card will usually offer better long-term value on non-Southwest purchases.

Q7. What happens if I do not use my upgraded boardings in a given year?
If you do not use the upgraded boardings during your cardmember year, they simply expire and do not roll over. That lost value effectively makes your annual fee more expensive, so it is important to be realistic about how many busy Southwest flights you will actually take each year.

Q8. Can I use the upgraded boarding benefit for someone else traveling with me?
Yes, as long as you are using your Priority card to pay for the upgraded boarding purchases, you can generally apply the benefit to other passengers on your reservation, subject to availability and the per-year limit on credits. Many cardholders use this perk to help family or friends board earlier on crowded flights.

Q9. Should I keep the card if my travel patterns change away from Southwest?
If you no longer fly Southwest regularly or your home airport sees fewer Southwest routes, it often makes sense to downgrade to a lower-fee Southwest card or switch to a flexible travel card. The Priority card’s value is tightly linked to frequent Southwest flying, so keeping it in a non-Southwest-heavy year can mean paying for perks you rarely use.

Q10. Is this a good first travel card for someone new to points and miles?
It can be, but only if you already know you prefer Southwest for most of your trips. For beginners who want simple rewards that work across many airlines and hotels, a general travel card or a straightforward cash back card is often easier to understand and more forgiving as your habits and destinations change.