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No You Didn’t Earn a Companion Pass: Southwest Made a Mistake!

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Southwest Companion Pass Mistake Email

Southwest Airlines sent an email to many many members of their Rapid Rewards program this morning with the subject “Congrats! You earned Companion Pass.” I was excited when I received mine:

Southwest Companion Pass Mistake Email

I had a Companion Pass that expired on 12/31/16, so I knew this had to be an error. The question for me was how widespread it was. Well, according to Reddit, many people received the same email. Our own PDX Deals Guy received it as well.

What Does This Mean?

Unfortunately Southwest isn’t awarding random Companion Passes to members. In fact, it was an error as confirmed by their Twitter team.

Of course this is sort of like rubbing salt in the wound considering Southwest heavily devalued how you can earn a Companion Pass without notice just three days ago. Did you receive the email?

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Shawn Coomer
Shawn Coomerhttps://milestomemories.com/
Shawn Coomer earns and burns millions of miles/points per year circling the globe with his family. An expert at accumulating travel rewards, he founded Miles to Memories to help others achieve their travel goals for pennies on the dollar. Shawn also runs a million dollar reselling business, knows Vegas better than most and loves to spend his time at the 12 Disney parks across the world.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. I got one also.That was SWA dangling the golden carrot on a stick and string to remind everyone……Hey and be sure to drink your Ovaltine also!

  2. yep received the email and thought the same that it was a mistake but checked just in case. Then saw Dr of Credit responses. Only issue I had then was why no apologies. Well just received

    Dear Simon,

    Today you received an email that incorrectly stated you had earned Companion Pass for 2017. This email was sent as a result of an error in our year end processing for Companion Pass status. Unfortunately you did not earn the status reflected. We recognize that receiving this email from us may have caused confusion and/or frustration, due to its inaccuracy regarding your 2017 status. For that, we offer our sincere apologies.

    We admit this isn’t the best way to start the New Year. That said, we appreciate your understanding when we make a human error like this one.

    Sincerely,
    Your friends at Southwest

  3. My husband received the same message. Looks like I won’t be traveling as much as I had planned as our previous companion pass expired 12/31/16. I think a follow up e-mail mentioning the error would be nice.

  4. Yes, received email for both of us.. While trying to add companion, it declined.. So, I figured it has to be an error on SW side..

  5. My wife received it (whose CP expired 12/31/2016). Seems like many people who received the email had a CP that expired 12/31/2016. I obtained a CP in 2016 lasting through 12/2017 and I did NOT receive the email.

  6. Same thing happened to me – but in my case, it was an email congratulating me on making A-List Preferred for 2017. I thought it strange because my travel was off in 2016 and I’d only made enough miles for A-List this time around. Sure enough, I’m only A-List.

    I don’t know what’s up with Southwest’s Rapid Rewards systems right now. The app still has a banner saying that tier status cannot be shown (it’s been 4 days!) and they’re firing off emails congratulating you for reaching status levels that you did not attain.

  7. Yes, my husband received it. Originally, thought it was in response to $800 in expired travel credits because of medical reasons. Southwest never responded to our email regarding that. Thought this was their belated response, but obviously not.

  8. I got it too, was hoping by some miracle mine that expired 12/31/16 had been extended another year but alas, it looks like I will be ordering lots of flowers again this year.

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