anonoah

I'm wondering which miles people would suggest using for a flight from either SFO or PDX to NYC (LGA/EWR/JFK).

I want to go visit a friend there, but there's a chance she may move before then, so I'd like to be able to cancel the flight or at least change it to a much later date if she moves.

I'm also not sure where I will be living in October, so I don't know if I should book it out of PDX or SFO.

I have miles on AA, AK, US and SW. As well as some UR points I could transfer to BA or United and a stash of Starwood points I'd rather not use but would consider using.

So I have lots of options for miles to use, but I'm not 100% familiar with all the cancelation/change policies of each airline. I know that SW and BA miles are full cancelable, but would prefer to avoid SW if possible and BA seems to only have availability in First Class (via AA). I've never flown AA first-class, but my understanding is it's generally not worth it for domestic travel.

Any recommendations? I'd be OK with paying like $100 to change the to/from or dates if it comes down to it, but I'd rather not book a flight that's totally non-refundable since there's so much uncertainty.

Thanks!

mike2200

Sounds like you need to wait bit and see how things workout where she'll be and where you'll be... Before booking

anonoah

Ideally yes, but I thought that flyertalk might have some opinions on which award currency is the cheapest to "cancel".

Anyway I did a bit of research to start us out:

United: $150 per person to cancel and redeposit. But if United has a "schedule change" for your journey, you can usually cancel the itinerary entirely and get a redeposit. This requires that the itinerary does get changed though. I think someone here once said that you can change the dates for free to something very far out which is more likely to have a schedule change, then cancel it when it does.

American: Seems like you can change the dates for free as long as the start and end points are the same. This is better than United's policy, although still not a true re-depositing.

Anyone else have any tips?

gooselee

Do you have status on any airlines? Some airlines waive award change/redeposit fees for their elites (ex., DL does this for their Platinum and Diamond members).

Apologies if this is answered in your FT profile - that doesn't show up on my phone.

The airlines are pretty good about making you pay for flexibility, though, so you might not find too many tricks in this area.

pinniped

Does the person flying hold any elite status? That would impact which airline I considered putting them on.

Do you hold any elite status? That could impact your change/redeposit fees, if necessary.

If the answers are no, then there's really only one good answer here from your listed four: Southwest. (In fact, if my traveler had no elite status, I'd put them on Southwest no matter what status I held.)

The good news with them is that you're just looking for a flight with a decent fare. If you change it later, you're again just looking at the underlying airfares. There aren't any penalty fees for changing.

Note: I'm assuming the OP means Alaska and Southwest with "AK" and "SW". An Alaska award, if and only if you can actually do it entirely on AS metal, would likely be my 2nd choice if the flier holds no elite status.