Originally Posted by bjele

I had some Airtran credits expiring Oct 1, so I converted to a standard award to extend the expiration by a year and in case I needed a last minute ticket. Sure enough, I came up needing a $360 one-way fare for something 9 days away.

As I tried to purchase, they said there were no standard awards available on that flight. I would need something called a Freedom Award to buy the seat.

The whole slogan of "no change fees" is really useless for changing to a new flight near the flight date, isn't it? They clearly are going to raise prices for anything within a week to far more than the change fee would've been with Airtran.

I knew this trip was a 50% possibility. In retrospect, I should have bought the ticket when it was $149 and then if things did not line up, I could cancel it to use the funds later. That might be the right strategy to take advantage of the "no change fees" policy.