I'm kind of disappointed by Southwest and what I found for Christmas tickets. Prices were very high. United's raw price (before bag fees) was less than Southwest. When adding in the bag fees, they were very comparible. What was as $250 r/t trip (DEN-STL-DEN) last year is like $447 this year. United had award availability for what I needed, Southwest did not. With the risk of United going under, I decided to burn some United miles.

Pre-shipping some stuff, including clothes, via FedEx ground is an option for me in this case to work around some of the United bag fees.

LAS-DEN on New Year's Day is $185 on Southwest as I write this, only $79 for Frontier. Frontier's time is just slightly better for me (not enough to be a deciding factor, but price + time both go to Frontier in this case).

The sad part is that now I am locked in to United and Frontier and should Southwest decide to reduce the price, I can't change to them, thanks to those darn change fees at United and Frontier.

I don't like having to go with UA and F9 (hope they are both still in business come December/January), but for the cost difference, its going to have to be.

It also puts my A-list in jepordy, but I'm not going to become an A-list status chaser. Status chasing at UA was annoying and expensive. I'll just do 24-hour check-in if it comes to that.