Southwest airline credit cards are a good example of co-branded credit cards. Southwest airlines and Chase have teamed up to bring the southwest airline credit cards to you. At the time of writing this article, there are two popular southwest airline cards which are also collectively called as southwest airlines rapid rewards Visa cards. One of these southwest airline credit cards is for personal use (this is called Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Visa Signature Card) and the other southwest airline credit card is for business use. Both these southwest airline credit cards are aimed at getting you a roundtrip award faster.

There are a number of ways in which you can earn reward points using Southwest airline credit cards. Southwest airline credit cards have two kinds of reward points i.e. there are two denominations in which you can earn reward points - rapid reward credits and rapid reward dollars. The rapid reward credits are a much higher reward denomination as compared to the reward dollars (e.g. at the time of writing this article, 1200 reward dollars is equal to 1 rapid reward credit).

So how do you earn and redeem the reward points on your southwest airline credit card?

You get bonus reward credits after your first purchase on your southwest airline credit card. These purchases needn't be on southwest airlines products/services, these can be just any purchases made using the southwest airline credit card. You earn reward dollars for any expenditures you make using your southwest airline credit card. There are additional reward dollars, when you use your southwest airline credit card on southwest airlines (i.e. when you use your southwest airline credit card to spend on southwest airlines products/services). By additional we mean, the reward dollars are more as compared to those earned on other, non-southwest airline, purchases. As you keep collecting reward dollars, you keep moving closer to getting a round trip award. Generally, the roundtrip awards are based on rapid reward credits. So, you can convert the reward dollars, earned on your southwest airline credit card, into rapid reward credits; and convert rapid reward credits into your roundtrip award. Another way of earning rapid rewards credit on southwest airline credit cards is through balance transfers.

Southwest airline credit cards are surely a good option for people who travel frequently by air using southwest airlines. Since the network of southwest airlines is pretty widespread, you will find that you are able to get southwest airlines flight to most places you want to travel to and hence get an opportunity to use your south west airline credit card to earn reward points (or reward dollars, as they call them).