A targeted Southwest Cardmember offer pays 10X on the first $500 of Southwest purchases made September 8 to 10, and the Travel s'more fare sale closes the same night. The catch is that 10X is the total, not a bonus on top, which means the cheapest eligible card gains the most. The math per card, how the two stack, and why gift cards decouple the deadlines.
Two Southwest deadlines land on the same night, September 10, and they work on different parts of the price. One lowers the fare. The other pays you back on what you spend. Together they are worth more than either alone, and the fine print on the second one is not what most people will assume.
The fare sale, quoted from Southwest's flight deals page: "One-way as low as* $59 Travel s'more sale. *Book by 9/10. Travel valid 9/29/26-3/3/27. 21-day adv. purch. req'd."
The card promotion, quoted from the Cardmember offer page: "Register now and earn 10X bonus points* on the first $500 in eligible Southwest® purchases made between 9/8-9/10/26—three days only!" Registration closes with it: "you must activate by 09/10/26 11:59 p.m. C.T."
So the fare has to be booked by the 10th, and the purchase has to post with a transaction date inside the 8th to the 10th. Same night, different requirements.
This is the part worth reading twice, because the offer's own terms say it plainly:
"Earning rates shown for this offer include any rewards you would earn through your rewards program and are not in addition to it. For example, if you earn 2X on Southwest® purchases through your rewards program and the offer states 10X on those purchases, you will earn 2X plus 8X, or a total of 10X through the offer, not 12X."
Your card's normal Southwest earn is inside the 10, not added to it. Which means what the promotion is actually worth to you depends on what your card already pays, and it runs backwards from what you would expect.
| Card | Annual fee | Normal Southwest earn | Points on $500 normally | With the promo | Extra points | Extra value at 1.3 cents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid Rewards Plus | $99 | 2X | 1,000 | 5,000 | 4,000 | $52.00 |
| Rapid Rewards Premier | $149 | 3X | 1,500 | 5,000 | 3,500 | $45.50 |
| Rapid Rewards Premier Business | $149 | 3X | 1,500 | 5,000 | 3,500 | $45.50 |
| Rapid Rewards Priority | $229 | 4X | 2,000 | 5,000 | 3,000 | $39.00 |
| Rapid Rewards Performance Business | $299 | 4X | 2,000 | 5,000 | 3,000 | $39.00 |
The cheapest card gains the most. Plus earns 2X on Southwest, so it climbs eight extra points per dollar to reach 10. Priority and Performance Business already earn 4X, so they climb six. If you hold more than one of these, put the $500 on the one with the lowest Southwest earn rate. That is the opposite of the usual advice, and it is worth about $13 on a maxed-out $500.
Business Plus is also on the eligible list. We do not carry a verified Southwest earn rate for it, so we are not going to print one. Check your own card agreement and do the same subtraction.
Buy sale fares with an eligible Southwest card between the 8th and the 10th and both offers apply to the same money. The sale sets the ticket price. The promotion pays 10X on the first $500 of it.
On a $500 booking that clears both, you are paying sale prices and taking back roughly $39 to $52 in points depending on your card, so call it an eight to ten percent rebate layered on top of an already reduced fare.
There is a tension between them, though, and it is the reason to plan before you click. The sale needs travel on or after September 29 with a 21-day advance purchase, so booking on the 10th means departing October 1 or later. Cheap fares also use up very little of the $500 cap: eight $59 tickets fill it, one $400 ticket barely dents it. The cap rewards buying more, the sale rewards buying cheap, and you have three days.
Gift cards count. The offer's eligible list, verbatim: "Purchases on Southwest Airlines®, including flight, inflight, Southwest® gift cards, and Getaways by Southwest® packages."
That decouples the two deadlines. If nothing in the sale window suits your calendar, you can still buy $500 in Southwest gift cards by the 10th, max the 10X, and spend the credit on a flight whenever you like. You give up the sale fare and keep the rebate.
What does not count, also verbatim: "Other Southwest Airlines related purchases, such as Southwest Cruises, Southwest Charters, and Southwest Cargo® are excluded."
These points do not help your Companion Pass. From the terms: "Bonus points earned through this offer do not qualify as Companion Pass® qualifying points and will not count toward earning Companion Pass status."
Companion Pass is the most valuable thing in the Southwest program, and a 5,000 point drop looks like meaningful progress toward it. It is not. Treat this as a rebate on spending, not as a step toward the Pass.
It is targeted. The terms say it "applies only to Cardmembers who receive marketing communications for this offer." The page it lives on sits inside your Southwest account, which means the link is yours and does not work for anyone else.
So there is nothing for us to link to. Log in to your Rapid Rewards account, open your promotions, and look for it. If it is not there, it is not available to you, and no amount of registering elsewhere will change that.
Fare sale terms read from southwest.com/special-offers/flight-deals/ on September 9, 2026. Promotion terms are quoted from the Cardmember offer page inside a Southwest account, supplied by a Cardmember who received it; that page is not publicly reachable. Earn rates are from our own card records. Point values use our published Rapid Rewards valuation of 1.3 cents, which is an estimate and not a price Southwest guarantees. Not affiliated with Southwest Airlines or Chase.