I know it's probably not a ULCC crowd here, but those are definitely cases where just walking away from a paid or award ticket is the only practical option. This can happen quite a bit with Spirit and their reduced-mile awards for credit cardholders. With those you have to book proactictively...a real plum like ATL-DEN at 5K miles RT + taxes/junk will go quickly, but maybe something comes up and you can't go. It's easier to eat the miles than pay the change fees.

With Frontier very often the ticket price is below the change fee if you bottom-fish and book in advance. Without a waiver situation you'd be looking at $110 or so to salvage a credit that could be less than half that.

I think the real bottom line is that the airlines want to protect change-fee revenue. That's such a lucrative thing for them that they'd rather maintain the perverse disincentive and fill the seat anyway via overbooking or with a non-rev, than make policy changes that could lead to pressure for a Southwest approach to change fees or otherwise rock the boat.

BTW, I also think "family pooling" arrangements for miles will cause great confusion and could have unintended consequences. Big companies and the government have long hated and sought to undermine FF programs, eyeing them suspiciously as a kickback that incentivizes bad purchasing decisions that add costs for the company. Airlines have fought it by making any interventions (like reclaim programs) an administrative nightmare even if successful, and insisting that the miles be credited to the person who actually flies. Breaking with this would jeopardize the revenue stream from mileage transfers, as well as setting a precedent of miles going to someone other than the individual flying. That could be a camel's nose in the tent for those who've tried to undermine the programs.