U.S. Airways Companion Pass

If you haven’t already taken advantage of the U.S. Airways Mastercard by Barclay, there’s still time! This is my number one recommended card to new miles travelers right now because it offers 50,000 miles and no manufacturer purchase spending minimums to reach. These minimums are not hard to reach once you’re comfortable with playing the miles game right, but at the beginning it can be a bit overwhelming. Read about my full review of the card here.

The main reason I did this was for the miles that will convert to American Airlines miles soon, but a side perk was that this card comes with a U.S. Airways Companion Pass.

Southwest by far has the best companion pass deal out there. And I wouldn’t get this U.S. Airways card just for their companion pass, but it worked out well in this situation. We’ll be taking a cruise in May with my parents and are so excited! My parents were graciously paying for our flights there as a gift and because of that this companion pass came in handy. The U.S. Airways companion pass allows for one flight each year by the card holder, traveling within the lower 48 states, to purchase their ticket (minimum of $250) and then add 1-2 additional passengers to the same itinerary for just $99 each.

Typically, I would rather use miles than pay for ANY flights at all. But in this case since my mom had been looking for deals on cheap flights anyway, the math worked out. I used my companion pass that I had received in the mail to look at flights options on the U.S. Airways website. The first options I chose looked good, but they were operated by American Airlines. Although they are listed on the U.S. Airways site, the companion pass can only be used on U.S. Airways flights. This wasn’t too big a deal and I was able to find some alternative times that worked well too.

You have to call U.S. Airways to make the reservation when using the companion pass. Usually there is a fee of $25 when making a booking over the phone, however this is waived when booking with the companion pass. I told the representative my Companion Pass number and the flights that I wanted. The regular flight cost was $489.70 which was paid in full for my flight as the holder of the companion pass. I then added my husband and one of my sisters to the reservation as well for just $136.70 each which included the taxes and fees for the flight. This means for three people flying from Omaha to Fort Lauderdale, the total cost was $763.10. This comes out to $254.37 a person. Not the cheapest flight in the entire world but there was definitely no way we were going to find tickets for that price range.

In this case the Companion Pass worked out really well for us! Combine this with a Cyber Monday deal I got for us to stay the night a hotel suite in Fort Lauderdale for only $12 and it’s looking like this trip is off to a good start!