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The biggest news this year involving Southwest was probably its announcement on New Year’s Day to disallow hotel points for earning the popular companion pass. No advance notice was given and it upset a lot of people. Fortunately, the airlines quickly had a change of heart and temporarily allowing the transfer through March 31, the end of this month.
[SEE ALSO: What is Southwest Companion Pass and how to get it ]
March 31 is just two weeks away. If you’ve been thinking about earning the Southwest Companion Pass by transferring hotel points, now it is the time to do it! To be safe, you really don’t want to wait until the last minute!
Here is a list of hotel points that you can transfer to Southwest, with Marriott points being the most popular due to its Hotel and Air packages:
- Best Western Rewards: 5,000 points = 1,200 Rapid Rewards points
- Club Carlson points at 10:1 ratio: 2,000 points to 200 Rapid Rewards points, 50,000 points to 5,000 Rapid Rewards points, and 100,000 points to10,000 Rapid Rewards points.
- Choice Privileges: 6,000 points to 1,800 Rapid Rewards points.
- World of Hyatt: 5,000 points = 2,400 Rapid Rewards points, or 50,000 points for 24,000 Rapid Rewards points plus a bonus of 6,000 Rapid Rewards points (so total 30,000 Southwest points).
- La Quinta Returns: 6,000 La Quinta Returns points = 1,200 Rapid Rewards points
- Marriott Hotels: best way is to use Marriott’s Hotel and Air packages, where you get a load of Southwest points plus 7 nights Marriott hotels.
- Starwood Hotels: covert SPG points to Marriott Rewards then use Marriott’s Hotel and Air package, one of the 4 reasons to transfer SPG points to Marriott (instead of the other way around). If you are short of SPG or Marriott points, you can currently buy SPG points at up to 30% discount, or earn 35,000 points for signing up either the personal or business American Express SPG card.
Once you have 110,000 qualifying points in your Southwest account, you’ll have the companion pass for the rest of 2017, plus all of 2018. Of course, if you don’t have hotel points to transfer to Southwest, you can always use the 3 other ways to earn the companion pass.
Are you planning to transfer hotel points to Southwest before March 31?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
How long does it take for the miles from a hotel and air package from Marriott to post to my Southwest account? Will the miles portion of the package post to Southwest on the day I call Marriott and redeem points for a package? I am waiting for some points from SPG that have not posted yet to order my Marriott travel package. Thanks for any data points you can give me!
Marriott says it would take up to 14 days, which is about what we have left now until March 31. But some people said they received the SW points the date they did the package. So I don’t know the answer to your question. I would recommend do it sooner other than later. You can always consider buying SPG points to top off you account. SPG points purchased do post instantly or within a day.