You'll maintain your Companion Pass for the remainder of the calendar year in which you qualified and the entire calendar year immediately following the year you qualified. To continue receiving Companion Pass privileges, you must re-qualify each calendar year.

The Southwest Companion Pass does not necessarily "reset" every year in terms of its validity, but your progress toward earning a new one does. Once you earn the Companion Pass—by flying 100 qualifying one-way flights or earning 135,000 qualifying points in a single calendar year—it is valid for the remainder of the year in which you earned it plus the entire following calendar year. For example, if you earn it in June 2026, it stays active until December 31, 2027. However, on January 1st of every year, your "points counter" for the next pass resets to zero. This means you must start accumulating points or flights again from scratch to "renew" the pass for the year after your current one expires. This system creates a high-value "loop" for frequent flyers: if you earn the pass very early in the year (for instance, via a credit card sign-up bonus in February), you effectively get nearly two full years of "buy-one-get-one-free" travel. It is widely considered the single most valuable perk in the domestic airline industry because there are no limit on the number of times you can use it during its validity period.