Going to San Diego
If you have been following this site you are well aware of the ability to use the Southwest Companion pass to your advantage. However, on this trip we discovered another great advantage of the companion pass, mechanical difficulties. I will talk about this shortly. First, let me give you some background.
Point cost from San Diego to Austin
Point cost from Austin to San Diego
We purchased our round trip flights for 18,608 points plus $22.40 for government fees for the both of us. The cost of the flight was $303 (Less government fees). For two people that would be ~$606.
Since we purchased our flights with bonus miles earned we actually saved $606 for the flights!
Mechanical Difficulties
Now this is were you can really rake in on the companion pass. When we arrived to the airport in San Diego to fly home, we were told that the plane had mechanical difficulties and the flight was going to be delayed an additional four hours. Now initially this sounds awful, but is it really? San Diego is beautiful, and the airport is in a great location. So what did we do? Well we didn’t waste four hours sitting at the airport! We grabbed a lyft and headed over to the Ballast Point Brewery. Upon returning to the airport, we found out that everyone on the flight was receiving $200 voucher to be used on a future flight. Remember, one of our flights is a free companion pass, and the other flight was purchased with free bonus miles. So our actual cost was $22. We weren’t sure if we would actually get the vouchers, but sure enough we both received the vouchers. So in total we got $400 in voucher credit that could be used any time in the next year! But wait, it gets better.
The companion pass actually makes that $400’s in vouchers $800!
So for $22 we received flights valued at $606 PLUS an additional $800 worth of travel. $22 into $1406! Now if that’s not a good return on your money, I don’t know what is!