Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Decisions: I still have my 2014 DM and PM choices in limbo. I've been wavering about taking at least some SWUs so as to have more of them, but I've also been seeing (and buying) some nice Z fares, so that I've been using fewer SWUs recently. I have a handful that don't expire until January 2015 at this point and it's hard to guess how many more I'll need in the next twelve months. I'm already ticketed on one BE/partner TPAC award ticket, two TATL SWU (all successfully confirmed at ticketing) trips, and one good Z fare.
I purchased the SWUed tickets earlier than usual because I had one SWU about to expire and I wanted to get my seats confirmed before people started using GUCs just in case they quickly grabbed all of the upgrade inventory shortly after March 1.
I got one Z fare for 2014 (GVA) but that was primarily about getting the route and aircraft that I wanted so I paid more than M/B.
When I ran the numbers for 2014, I was using Z as the standard for tickets after the GUCs were gone and for my 2015 trips already in place and the cost of M/SWU tickets were much lower.
I two have 2 SWUs left linked to January 2015 but at least these last batch of SWUs remain useful past the acquisition date as long as the ticket has been reissued before the deadline.