Tried to read through the recent data points, as it seems the front page info is different than how things are working now ,but I want to make sure that I have this straight as it seems to function very different than my usual AA or DL credits.

I wanted to book a flight today for 4 EWR-DEN leaving end of December , but there is a fair chance I may need to cancel or change the dates, and won't know until about 1 week.before
My understanding is that if I need to cancel I would get 4 FFC , each locked to each pax, and required to fly by today's date The problem is I would likely not need to fly with all 4 until Dec of next year, not November, but since unlike DL these are fly by not book by credits I would be out of luck This thread showed that until recently these were fairly easy to extend by booking new and cancelling but that may not be working as reliably now.

Is my analysis here correct? Don't want to pull the trigger on these and be stuck w 4 credits that expire useless . I looked at booking award travel to eliminate this risk but unfortunately as expected for Y domestic redemption,the rate is absolutely dreadful at around 1c per point

Thanks for the help with a dumb question