I’m pretty damn stoked that the Southwest Companion Pass is finally within reach. Normally, this elite status is attainable only if you clock 50 round trip flights in one year OR obtain 110,000 points, which is kinda a shit ton of dough, you know what I mean?

With the credit card bonus, I scored 50k points free back in March. But then separately, Southwest ran some insane promo for California this summer, requiring only five round trip flights from July to October. So now I don’t even need the 110k points: I just need the round trips, and with all the crazy sales they’ve been having, Precious will be mine!!  Muhahaha!

So it should come as no surprise that I’m a dork, and I tallied up the cost of the five flights. Some of them were flown solo and a few were with Bubbey but his flights are irrelevant in terms of the promo. Even after all that, the total came under $1500! Obviously, for each trip, there’s lodging and car rental and whatever, so the gross outlay is higher but still, if you just calculate based on the flights, this is a pretty low barrier of entry for a free companion ticket for any Southwest destination through December 31, 2017, right? I’m super psyched.

And speaking of travel deals, my bud N is celebrating her 40th in Big Sky, MT this January. Yup, she is not afraid of heavy duty snow in the mountains in the dead of winter. Anyway, she’s renting out a posh lodge and a bunch of her friends are gathering from all over the country. Bc Bozeman is a smaller airport, there aren’t really direct flights (except from Seattle) and airfare ranges from $300-$600. I was tracking and just waiting for a good price point. But then, N sent me her itinerary, which is uber cray from the East Coast (Wilmington to Charlotte to Nashville to Seattle to Bozeman), and a light went off in my head. Wait, what??? Alaska Air and American Air are partner airlines? It’s pretty fricking tricky bc when you go on the AA site to book an award flight, the default search is just for AA and American Eagle, so then no flights are available. But, if you open the search to partners, all kinds of routes emerge, including several on Alaska. I’m pretty thrilled bc I hardly ever fly AA or Alaska so I’ve had the points just sitting in my account, and now I just eeked out a freebie flight. Woot, woot! Maybe I should work in the travel industry. Hee, hee.