Originally Posted by WebfootTransplant

I fly on mostly government fares as well so I figure I'll throw my $.02 in.

I'm pretty sure that taking a paper ticket and exchanging it for a ticket on another airline breaks a slew of Gov't rules. The GSA City-Pair program is generally pretty mandatory unless you can prove a cost savings. Otherwise, you're breaking the contract that GSA has with the airline in question. I'm not a travel expert, so YMMV.

However, one legal way you can go about getting your preferred airline is to try to piece cheaper fares together using multiple city-pairs. For example, say the contracted ticket price for SLC-ORD is $500 on UA. The ticket price for SLC-LGA might be $200 on DL and the price for LGA-ORD might be $200 on DL. You can legally set up your ticket to go SLC-LGA-ORD and pay only $400, thus getting a different airline and justifying it with the lower cost. All these numbers and routings are hypothetical, but this technique is valid on certain routes and is legal in accordance with GSA rules.

One other thing that I've noticed is that while many of the promotions claim to exclude government fares, it seems like they usually don't actually enforce the rule. This is just my experience, though, again YMMV.

-WT