Originally Posted by
CJKatl
To answer the OP's question - $100 for loyalty, and $100 per segment for direct versus non-direct. It's in our corporate travel policies. If AAA-BBB is more than $100 less on a specific airline, I need to fly that airline. If AAA-BBB-CCC is $200 less than AAA-CCC on another airline, the connecting flights win. Luckily, usually the connecting flights originate earlier than I'm done for the day in AAA. By documenting this, I can take the more expensive, direct flight without violating our travel policies.
On business: We don't have a specified travel policy, but the situations described in the quote above are about what I can "get away with" when spending company $$. The company recognizes the benefits to flying me on an airline where I have status and they will allow a bit of extra expense for me to fly DL without kicking up a big ol' beancounting fuss.
On personal travel, my loyalty buffer zone is about 20% above the lowest ticket price offered by another carrier -- BUT, I wouldn't pay that premium on every trip. I'll do it occasionally. Last fall there was a period of time when FL was consistently beating DL on some routes and I sucked it up and flew FL a couple times. (That was before I figured out that on Tuesdays DL usually drops their price to match FLs. At least that was the pattern throughout the late fall, winter, and spring for the route I was interested in flying.)