Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card

The Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card is the cheapest of Chase's Southwest consumer cards at $99 a year, charged to your first statement with no waiver. The card was rebuilt in the July 2025 refresh: the fee rose from $69, the old bonus categories ended December 31, 2025, and the perks were rewired around Southwest's new reality of paid checked bags and assigned seating. The current offer is 50,000 points after $1,000 in purchases in the first 3 months, one of the lowest spend hurdles on any airline card. Earning is 2 points per dollar on Southwest purchases and 2x at gas stations and grocery stores on up to $5,000 in combined spend per anniversary year (then 1x), with 1 point per dollar everywhere else. The variable APR is 19.24% to 27.74%, and the refresh finally eliminated this card's old 3% foreign transaction fee. The headline perk is now the free first checked bag for the cardholder and up to eight other passengers on the same reservation. Since Southwest began charging for checked bags in 2025, a single family trip can recoup the annual fee. You also get 3,000 bonus points every account anniversary, a 10% off flight discount promo code each year, Group 5 boarding, standard seat selection within 48 hours of departure on Southwest's assigned-seating flights (flying January 27, 2026 onward), 25% back on inflight purchases, and a 10,000-point annual boost toward Companion Pass qualification. The fine print: the anniversary points and bag benefit only matter if you actually fly Southwest, an airline with no long-haul international network. The 2x categories cap at $5,000 of combined spend. And the seat benefit is deliberately tiered: standard seats only, and only inside the final 48 hours, while Priority cardholders pick seats at booking. Get the Plus if you fly Southwest a couple of times a year with bags and want the cheapest way to keep those perks. Skip it if you fly Southwest often enough to care about seats and boarding, where the $229 Priority's extras justify the gap, or if you mostly fly other airlines, where this card earns a weak 1x on nearly everything you buy.