Originally Posted by
HoustonConsultant
I rarely endorse flying Southwest, but if you really cannot plan the travel without needing to change a lot of flights, it does seem like the best option to what you are describing
If you do not know well in advance that you are doing to change the weekend, then the fare difference on top of the change fee is going to be brutal (and likely more than you would originally pay on Southwest).
If you know well enough in advance that you are going to change weekends, then you probably would be able to find cheap enough airfares at that point.
If you assume half your $250 UA flights are going to change, then that half become $450 flights (if you are lucky enough to get the same fare class).
If you book a flight for September, but realize you won't make it that weekend, so you push it back to a weekend in November when you might go, you are paying $200 for the privilege of that change, and you still may find yourself not wanting to go that weekend in November, so now you are going to pay another $200 change fee. A $650 flight even without fare differences.
There are easier ways to make Gold (and the Gold benefits are not all that substantial - you still won't get upgrades). For the additional money you are going to spend on UA, you could do a Premium Accelerator to get to gold.
I would certainly prefer flying UA, and that is a fair number of OnePass miles to accumulate, so by far the best strategy is to try to plan the travel better so that you are not changing a bunch of UA flights.
I would assume weekend flights to Boston are generally cheaper than weekday flights, but with tourists wanting to see fall leaves changing, I bet weekend airfares in late September and October start going up. With the change fees and fare differences, you may find yourself with a bunch of flights that end up costing you $800.
Thank you so much for your detailed response. This is very helpful. I did not fully consider that.
As I just responded in another post. I was just reviewing my bills on Mint.com, and realized that I spent $7400 of my hard earned cash on Southwest in the past 12 months. I feel like I got no rewards/earnings out of all that southwest spending. That Southwest A-list thing seems really worthless to me.
I flew United internationally before. But had no understanding of how status on United worked. Just learned about it about 3 months ago. Feels really bad thinking about what that $7400 on Southwest would have gotten me if I had flown United in terms of higher elite status, especially since per ticket southwest on Houston to Boston route is a lot more expensive on average than United.
But as you say, I should not book all weekends so early. Will try to figure out my schedule more clearly and see if I can reduce cancellation cost/possibility.