Originally Posted by
houserulz77
2600$ seems like a good price for a J ticket covering that distance, and 270,000 miles seems like wayyyy too many for an award ticket.
If you didn't already have the ticket, it would be a no-brainier, but I think I might eat the change fee still (depending on the cost of the AS ticket).
We can think of the refund of fees on the award ticket as just about covering the cancel/redeposit fee.
Also, we didn't consider whether dad could use some MQMs and RDMs on DL or some other SkyTeam program. Of course, the value of the miles won't matter if they're going to be orphaned, but this trip would come close to a domestic coach RT award ticket and would be more than enough for a low one way award ticket.