On my way to a Southwest Companion Pass!

I opened email the other day to see that I had been approved for the Chase Marriott Premier credit card. I jumped for joy! Not because I love Marriott or have some destination in mind, but because the 80,000 bonus points that come with this card will put me very close to earning a Southwest companion pass for next year and the year after.
Since my daughter will be going to college next year, this will help us afford the multiple trips we will need to make across the country.
You may be scratching your head asking how do Marriott points earn you a Southwest companion pass? 
And why did you doubt you would be approved?
First, Chase has recently changed their authorization policy so if you have opened 5 credit cards with any bank in the last 24 months, Chase is denying you for new cards. This changes the game for a lot of people who collect points and miles. Chase has a lot of cards so this puts a serious dent in the hobby.
But I was approved, hooray.
Now how does this help me get a companion pass. This is a bit tricky, but definitely worthwhile because the Southwest companion pass is one of the most valuable out there.
The pass allows you to take a companion along for FREE anywhere Southwest flies. Think of it as a buy 1, get 1 FREE pass.
Awesome!
So I have enjoyed having this pass for the past year and this current year. I was able to earn the pass by opening several Southwest credit cards each with a bonus of 50,000 points. This is by far the easiest way to earn the pass. However, you can only open these cards every 24 months so to earn the pass again, I needed to find a new way.

Here's what I found. I opened 2 Marriott Premier cards, one personal and one business card. My husband also opened a Marriott card. Each card comes with 80,000 points plus 7,500 for authorized users. The business card only came with 70,000 points and no authorized user unfortunately. Now here's the interesting part. Marriott offers flight/hotel packages in its reward program. One of the packages is for Southwest points plus a week at a Marriott hotel category 1-5. You need 270,000 Marriott points to buy that package.
With my points and my husband's points and a bit of spend on my Marriott card, we should have enough points to buy the package.
And when the Southwest points hit my account, I will earn the companion pass. BAM!
This takes some work and some planning so the points hit your account in January, but the reward is the companion pass for the next 2 years. And in my book, that is definitely worth a bit of work.