Originally Posted by ero2
BUT, other than southwest, does any company make it possible to use miles for walk up fares, or emergency flights?
In tis case it seems that a walk up 1000$ domestic flight would easily blow away the cashback card, but the question is, even if I pay the 75$ expedite fee on AA for example, would I still be able to use 25k miles for a walk up or same day flight provided I pay this fee.
WN is the only US domestic airline (iirc) that will give you any remaining seat on the plane for the same price, no matter if the plane is empty or fully booked. The legacies tend to charge you double (so 50K miles for a domestic coach award) to get any remaining seat. So if you're looking at earning miles or cash, the tradeoff is between (50K + foregone earnt)miles + $75 + $10 taxes, or the walk up fare. So if the walk up fare is more than (51K * 1.5c) + $85 = $850 return, then miles start to look good. In this day and age of Simplifares, you'd be pretty unlucky to have to pay that (I just priced out a return BOS-LAX leaving today, coming back Friday for $525). I'd still go with the cash unless you anticipate international emergency trips!