TLDR: Southwest credit cards are getting a major overhaul. Annual fees are rising, but new benefits include seat selection, flight discounts, and better boarding for flights in 2026 and beyond.
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There’s some (more) big news brewing in the world of Chase credit cards: all of Chase’s Southwest cards are drastically changing.
While there are some awesome new cardmember offers of up to 100,000 points, they come at a time masking some pretty drastic changes associated with the card and the airline.
Starting today July 24, 2025, all the Southwest cards (both personal and business) are undergoing product refreshes and increasing their annual fees. Here’s a chart that compares the annual fees of the cards:
Up until July 23, 2025 | Starting July 24, 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card | $69 | $99 |
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card | $99 | $149 |
Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card | $149 | $229 |
Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card | $99 | $149 |
Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card | $199 | $299 |
As you can see, the annual fees are all increasing to some degree across the board. Is this good news? Well, it depends on whether or not you think you can leverage the benefits of the restructured cards.
Since Southwest is transitioning to a more traditional airline with traditional benefits, it should come at no surprise that a lot of the new benefits are reflective of this.
In summary, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card is essentially restructuring itself to be somewhat similar to the likes of United℠ Explorer Card or Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® cards, positioning itself as the cheapest annual fee card amongst the airline options. It will now provide nice introductory benefits for folks flying on Southwest in 2026.
Removed/Ending Soon: All benefits here ending Dec 31, 2025
New Benefits as of July 24, 2025
*Benefits start for flights operating in 2026 and beyond
The revamped Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card is slightly more expensive than its Plus counterpart but offers Complimentary Preferred seats* instead of Standard within 48 hours of departure.
Removed/ending soon: All benefits ending Dec 31, 2025
New Benefits as of July 24, 2025
*Benefits start for flights operating in 2026 and beyond
The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card still carries the title of the most expensive personal Southwest card and primarily differentiates itself with the addition of Extra Legroom seat upgrades alongside the ability to spend towards A-List status. For the price of $80 more per year, you’d need to evaluate closely to see if those additional benefits are worthwhile to you.
Removed/Ending Soon: All benefits here ending Dec 31, 2025
Removed as of July 24, 2025
New Benefits as of July 24, 2025
*Benefits start for flights operating in 2026 and beyond
The Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card is becoming slightly more expensive as well and is essentially rebooting itself to provide standard airline benefits. At a high level, it essentially just feels like the business version of the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card, which I guess, is by design.
Removed/ending soon: All benefits ending Dec 31, 2025
New Benefits as of July 24, 2025
*Benefits start for flights operating in 2026 and beyond
The revamp to the Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card immediately positions it as the most expensive Southwest card available. While this is the only Southwest card that gives a statement credit for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck® or NEXUS every 4 years, it’s still hard to justify the larger annual fee when compared to the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card.
Removed/ending soon: All benefits ending Dec 31, 2025
New Benefits as of July 24, 2025
*Benefits start for flights operating in 2026 and beyond
The most apparent thing I noticed here is that all Southwest card holders get Group 5 boarding benefits. This makes it such that you can pay the lower annual fee for the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card and still get the same boarding group as the Southwest® Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card. I find this lack of benefit differentiation to be a little bit weak.
Additionally, it’s clear there are 3 tiers of “seating” benefits, all occurring within 48 hours of departure. Since every “tier” can access the seating below it, it’s clear that Standard seats are likely to become commoditized.
Finally, it’s a bit odd that the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card doesn’t come with any Flight Discount. This feels like a benefit that should definitely be provided with the highest annual fee personal Southwest card, especially considering the others have it as a benefit.
Despite the higher annual fees, I think the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card or the mid-tier Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card seem to be the most valuable Southwest cards to have.
In considering the seat benefits alone, it’s clear to me that the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card’s access to Extra Legroom seats will be nice to have given how oversaturated the access for Standard Seats will be.
However, for those who don’t fly a lot of Southwest Airlines, it may be hard to justify the additional annual fee when comparing the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card to the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card. If you are a frequent Southwest flyer, you will definitely appreciate those Extra Legroom seats, 4x points earned per $1 on Southwest purchases, 2.5k TQPs for A-List/$5,000 spent on the card, and 7,500 points earned every Cardmember anniversary.
If you’re someone who flies Southwest even 1-2 times a year, I still find it hard to justify the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card over the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card. The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card gives 6,000 points every Cardmember anniversary (versus the Plus’s 3,000>, which is already pretty close to covering that annual fee difference.