Originally Posted by
justhere
Funnily enough my situation is exactly the opposite. Got what I wanted with AA miles and am using UA to come back but there are no J saver awards on UA and Y is 42.5k miles. So comparatively speaking, 42.5k for Y on UA vs. 70k J on AA isn't a very good value but I'm more concerned with shortest time to get home. If J opens on UA or AA I'll gladly pay a few hundred $$ to redeposit/change, etc. I'm not going to let $200 or $300 be the thing I remember about the trip.
In your situation did you check other airports? Intra europe flights on some of the LCC's can be very cheap. Also, high speed trains are a good option. Did you look at flying into Milan, or Rome, or Zurich, or (fill in the blank)?
As stated I was pretty creative in looking for options. While the non stop ORD VCE was preferable I looked at direct flights to US cities frequently. The best I saw in one year leaving ORD was AA flight to PHL at 6 AM with connection at 7 to VCE. It disappeared quickly and I don't know if it was truly available and while I might enjoy BC there is no way I am getting up at 3 in the morning and sitting in PHL for 10 hours to enjoy this experience. Plus of course any change I make incurs the dreaded fees again.
So based on my conversation with many colleagues who are at the Plat Exec level and my anecdotal experience (over a one year period) I will vote with my feet to fly UA from ORD for point value to complement my 90% flying of WN. In fairness I did wind up with non stop coach tickets at a reduced level despite some extra
fees which was undermined to me by not being able to find any reasonable options in BC for a year. Additionally, after all of my complaining I did kind of rethink the
Sidebar comment, I don't know if hotels and airlines truly appreciate the point value, award availability importance to many travelers.. I dumped Hilton (Diamond) because their points became so diluted and will be doing the same with AA. I will usually suck it up on longer WN flights as I look at the value the points bring .
The only exception being when I can buy a FC ticket on alternative carrier for significantly less than WN Business Class which is not uncommon on some routes. JMHO