SOUTHWEST FOR TRAVEL CREDIT ON BoFA, BARCLAY, CNB, ETC..

I have been offline for a while so apologies for that. That being said lets explore something which is useful if you have credit cards which earns you points which you can redeem for travel credits at 1:1 ratio. Let me begin with the few cards that I am aware of which provide great value on earning or redeeming for travel credits.

• Barclays arrival plus card - Earns 2% in points on all spend. Can redeem points at 1:1 ratio for travel purchases of $100 or more made with the card. So, 10,000 points can be redeemed for $100 in travel purchase. In additional earn 5% points back for each redemption. It has annual fee of $89.
• Bank of America Travel Rewards card - Earn 1.5% points for all purchase + additional bonus points of up to 75% of base points for preferred BoFA banking customers, so essentially making it ~2.625% earning card. 10,000 points can be redeemed for $100 in travel purchase made with the card. Minimum redemption starts at 2,500 points. This card has no annual fee.
• CNB Visa Infinite Card - Earn 3% in points on various category of expenses and 1% otherwise. This card provides $250 in travel credits every year for various domestic airlines incidentals, including Southwest Airlines. It has annual fees of $400 but benefits easily outweigh the cost.

There could be other credit cards which provide you option to ​redeem points for travel at 1:1 ratio but above 3 are the one I am aware of where Southwest Airlines is the most useful and here is why:

• Southwest Airline has the most liberal change policy. You can change/cancel your reservation up to 10 minutes before your flight departure and still receive the difference/entire cost of ticket refunded as "Travel Credit" for future use for same passenger within 1 year of original booking date.
• You can book flights by redeeming Southwest airlines points with each point valued from 1.53 to 1.67 cents/point + taxes/fees. So $100 ticket can be redeemed for ~5900 southwest points on the higher side of value. If you cancel a reward reservation you can choose to held the "taxes/fees" as travel credit for future use (not recommended) or refund it to original form of payment.

Now you might have accumulated substantial points in your "travel rewards" credit card but do not know of a way to redeem that as you have no plans of travel in near future. If you read the above point closely you will realize a way to get the statement credit without travelling. Yes, you can book an award redemption using your Southwest points for far out in the future where taxes/fees are substantial component of the award. Once those fees/taxes hit your credit card (which provides travel credit redemption) you can pay off by redeeming the travel related credit or wait for travel credit for "CNB" card. At a later date you can just cancel the award redemption and choose to get refund back to original form of payment :).

Thanks for reading!
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P.S. - I do not earn any commission from the above credit card links.