Yes, to anyone, for a price
Southwest is one of the open programs. Rapid Rewards lets you transfer points to any other member with an active account. No household test, no relationship test. If the person has a Rapid Rewards number, you can send them points.
But it costs money. Southwest treats a transfer as a purchase, and the price is per point.
The rules Southwest publishes
From Southwest's own Buy, Gift and Transfer page, as of this writing:
| Rule | What Southwest says |
|---|---|
| Increments | Points move in blocks of 500, or 1,000 during promotional periods. |
| Minimum | An initial minimum of 2,000 points. |
| Daily cap | A combined maximum of 60,000 points per day across buy, gift, and transfer. |
| Price | Charged per point and shown at checkout, paid by credit card. |
| Reversibility | Transactions are non-refundable and nonreversible. |
| Posting time | Allow 72 hours for the points to post. |
| Status | Transferred and gifted points do not count toward A-List, A-List Preferred, or Companion Pass. |
Read the price line twice. Because the fee scales with the number of points, a transfer big enough to matter is a transfer big enough to cost real money. (Southwest is a business. Moving value between accounts for free would be a strange thing for it to offer, and it does not.)
The 72-hour posting window
Points do not land instantly. If the recipient is trying to book a specific fare, three days is long enough for that fare to change. Start the transfer well ahead of the booking, or use the free alternative below and skip the wait entirely.
The free alternative most people should use
Here is what the transfer page will not tell you: you almost never need to transfer. Rapid Rewards lets you redeem your own points for a flight in another person's name. Book it from your account, enter their details as the passenger, done. No fee, no 72-hour delay, no daily cap, no permanent loss if plans change. (This is how most families run one person's points across everyone's flights, and Southwest is fine with it.)
So the real question is not "can I transfer" but "why would I." A transfer makes sense only when the other person needs to hold the points, usually to combine them with their own balance for a booking neither account covers alone, or to book on their own schedule without you in the loop. Consolidating a family's scraps into one account before a big trip is the textbook case.
Everything else, just book the flight for them.
Transfers and the Companion Pass
A common hope is to transfer points into a family member's account to push them over a status threshold. It does not work. Southwest is explicit that transferred and gifted points do not count toward A-List, A-List Preferred, or Companion Pass qualification. The points are perfectly good for flights. They just do not move the status needle for anyone.
There is no expiration clock forcing you
Unlike hotel programs that forfeit points after a stretch of inactivity, Rapid Rewards points do not expire unless the account is closed. That changes the calculus. You do not have to move points to save them. A balance can sit for years and be worth exactly the same number of points when you come back to it. So a paid transfer is never an emergency measure. It is a convenience, and you should price it as one.
What are Southwest points worth?
Rapid Rewards is a revenue-based currency, so its value moves less than most: the points track the fare price rather than an award chart. Independent valuations put Southwest Rapid Rewards points around 1.3 cents each, and because that figure is fairly steady, the transfer fee is easy to judge against it. If the fee is a large share of what the points would buy, the transfer is not helping. Our Southwest Rapid Rewards valuation guide covers where the number comes from and how Wanna Get Away fares change it, and the cents-per-point calculator checks any specific flight. For the cash side, the Southwest Rapid Rewards calculator on our sell page gives you a figure for your exact balance.
When none of this fits
Some balances have no flights in their future. You stopped flying Southwest, or the points came from a business that no longer exists. Transferring for a fee to someone who also will not fly solves nothing, and booking a flight nobody wants is worse.
That balance can be turned into cash instead, and for points nobody will fly, selling is usually the best option. It is legal in the United States (our guide Is It Legal to Sell Points? has the detail), and a legitimate broker keeps it simple: no Southwest transfer and no per-point fee to move anything; a specialist confirms the offer by phone and payment comes straight to you. iBuyPoints is one such broker. Run your balance through the Southwest Rapid Rewards calculator for a quote, and payment goes out via PayPal, typically within 1 business day. No waiting for a trip that is not coming.
The transfer rules above come from Southwest's Buy, Gift and Transfer Points page, which is also where the current per-point price lives. Check it before you send. Then ask yourself whether the other person needs the points, or just needs the flight.