Originally Posted by
darthbimmer
In addition to the risks of TC and TTFs there's also the time-value of money to consider.
One way I manage it is by striving not to have more than a year's predictable cash travel pre-paid in the form of GCs and TTFs. That's why I've ignored the past few $430 sales, including this one.
Agreed. This time of year I usually have over a thousand in TTFs because I rebooked during the anniversary and $29 intra-CA sales despite booking speculative flights to the end of the sale period. So I'm skipping this gift card sale. If overlapping bookings were tolerated, I would have booked all of the funds on speculative flights. If history repeats itself, there will be another $29/$39 sale that will cover March. After that, fares get expensive and I'll use up the Southwest funny money pretty quick for the costly April-July bookings. That's when I'll need another $430 Costco sale.
Besides, the GC sales are frequent enough that you can price match back to $430 if purchased within 30 days.