Let's take a quick WGA vs. AT vs. BS comparison: tomorrow DEN-SAT...

WGA - $240 - 1440 points ($24.00) - $216 accounting for point value
AT - $314 - 3140 points ($52.33) - $261.67 accounting for point value
BS - $334 - 4008 points ($66.80) - $267.20 accounting for point value

In the above case WGA + EBCI is still a better deal than one of the other fares (and, again, this is for travel tomorrow) when you factor out the points you're getting for each flight. However if you value a low-A boarding pass and the premium drink, BS is attractive compared to AT, since the effective fare difference after points are factored out is about $5. Taxes and fees are roughly the same dollar amount across the board so the comparison holds, albeit with a higher final cost by about $18 when you go all-in.

...and then you look at alternate carriers. Frontier's fares across classes are the same at this point so you pick Classic Plus, for about $251 all-in. For flying an animal rather than a cattle car you get the following:

1. early boarding
2. advance seat selection anywhere on the plane (including seats with 35" pitch)
3. 2 checked bags
4. DirecTV if your flight has it (one of the flights tomorrow does, the other doesn't)
5. priority checkin/boarding/security
6. a refundable fare with no change fees (including name changes if you wanted to do that)
7. 1200 miles toward elite status, which starts at 15k miles or 20 segments; an economy-class reward is 12.5k miles OW anywhere in the lower 48, if there's availability (22.5k otherwise)

So we've found that BS is sometimes merited...if you only fly SWA. If you're willing to fly another airline there may be better deals to be had.