Well, this February I got the call that the police had to break into my mothers apartment because she had not opened the door for two days. Thanks to UA MP I was on the next LH flight to India. The revenue ticket would have been 2000€ one way and LH M&M told me they couldn't issue the mileage ticket that fast. The 75$ close in fee was relatively minor at that point.

In 2009 I took my FIL to see NYC and due to various reasons reached too late to JFK. DL/NW basically told me to go suck an egg, partially because I intended to fly JFK-DTW(-PIT) with a 60$ hidden city ticket. So I splurged for two F tickets using my DL Skypesos and we left in style one hour later. Anything else would have costs me an arm and a leg.