AirTran Airways A+ Rewards Credit Card: Get 2 Flights
For a limited time, the recently launched AirTran Airways A+ Rewards Credit Card is offering 2 round-trip flights one round-trip flight when you sign up for a new account. New cardholders will earn 32 bonus A+ Rewards credits (worth 2 round-trip flights) after spending $2,000 within the first 3 months of opening their account.
Update 12/10: The limited-time 2 round-trip offer has expired. You will now earn one round-trip flight after you spend $1,000 in the first 3 months of opening your account.
A+ Rewards Credits can be redeemed for flights on either AirTran Airways or Southwest Airlines. If redeemed on Southwest, 32 A+ Rewards Credits are also worth 2 Southwest flight awards.
The card’s benefits include:
- 2 Business Class upgrades after first purchase
- 2 A+ Rewards Credits every year after your Cardmember Anniversary
- 2 A+ Rewards Dollars per $1 spent on all AirTran Airways and Southwest Airlines purchases made directly with the airline
- 2 A+ Rewards Dollars per $1 spent on all A+ Rewards and Rapid Rewards® Hotel and Rental Car Partner purchases
- 1 A+ Rewards Dollar per $1 spent on all other purchases
For every 1,200 A+ Rewards Dollars, cardholders will receive one A+ Rewards credit toward a flight. 16 A+ Rewards credits are enough for 1 round-trip ticket on either AirTran or Southwest. This means that you’ll need to spend at most $19,200 on the card to earn a free flight. (Any spending on AirTran or Southwest would reduce that number.) That compares favorably with other airline credit cards, such as those offered by American, Delta and United, which typically require $25,000 in spending for a free flight.
In order to redeem A+ Rewards for Southwest Airlines flights, members must both have a Rapid Rewards and an A+ account and both accounts must be in the same name.
The card does carry an annual fee of $69.
What I wonder is, can we still reap the benefits of this card for Rapid Rewards points if we use the Southwest Airlines rewards card from a month ago?
Hi Fred, thanks for the question. Given that it is possible to have multiple Southwest cards, I see no reason (other than already having too many cards from Chase) that you would not be able to get this card as well.
Also, I should clarify that if you are looking to get this card for redemption on Southwest, the A+ credits you earn with this card are transferred to Rapid Rewards as the old Rapid Rewards credits, NOT as points under the new Rapid Rewards points system. One major difference between RR credits and points is that awards from credits are capacity-controlled, unlike awards under the newer points system. Credits from both A+ and RR, however, can be transferred back and forth. See this page for more details.
In either case, 16 credits will get you a round-trip flight on either Southwest or AirTran.
Cool, thanks. According to the SWA credit card offer (the 50k signup bonus if spending $2k within 3 months), you aren’t eligible if you’ve ever taken part of the SWA credit card offer in the past. I was checking if we’d still be able to take advantage of this plan for SWA rewards, after using the SWA card. It looks like we can.
Thanks for the clarification on the RR credits versus RR points. Rewards systems can be confusing enough without two simultaneous units of “currency” out there!
Glad to be of assistance. One other thing to be aware of that I forgot to mention initially is that if you did just recently apply for the SWA card, you may run into problems getting an instant approval with Chase, as they prefer that you don’t sign up for more than one of their cards within too short of a time frame. If you apply and get a deferred decision (or are rejected), you will want to call their reconsideration line at 888-245-0625, as they can be of great help in this kind of circumstance.