Originally Posted by
rsteinmetz70112
People often ask what the value of Standard Awards is. I have a perfect illustration.
I found out yesterday my wife and I have to attend a funeral across the country on Friday.
Yesterday evening I was able to book 3 of the 4 flights on Standard Awards and the remaining one using Airtran A+Biz. The cost is equivalent to 48,000 points. The lowest available fares would have been $1,581 or 145,862 points.
This morning when I checked and discovered some new lower points fares for one of the flights. I could cancel the Airtran Flight and book a different Southwest flight for about 12,500 points. I may do that and save the Airtran credits for future Standard Awards.
I just thought you might be interested.
Great example. It all depends on your travel needs and habits. For example, the vast majority of non-rev flights I take are with the family on 'planned' vacations that we need to book 2-3 months in advance, usually with an annual trip over the Christmas holidays. Trying to find three SA seats this far out (and especially during the holidays) is next to impossible, so we always book with points. In fact, we haven't used any SA's in the 3.5 years since RR 2.0 came out and out of the dozens of flights booked with points, only a handful were over the magic 19,200 point mark - and only then just a couple of thousand points over that mark. And many times I was able to refare those tickets well below the 19,200 point threshold.
Both points and SA's offer differing value depending on the type of flexibility you require. For my family, RR 2.0 bookings in points have been a big boon over the 16-credit SA program especially since seats purchased with points aren't limited. With just two Anytime AUS-> HOU round-trips, because of A-List Preferred, I earn $200 worth of WGA travel.
Of course, nothing can beat the days where there were unlimited SA seats and you could always get double credits by booking on-line and there were often additional promos you could stack.