Originally Posted by hw711
I don't book award flights for myself (I buy real ticket for myself and use miles for my poor friends who want to come along but can't afford the trip) so it doesn't really happen very often. I book like one award flights every couple years (hence the inexperiened question).
Until this year, I hadn't booked a reward for me for a couple of years. I book for friends and family for the most part usually, and am able to change *their* rewards as much as I want. It's not just for tickets you book for yourself.
I have a relative who wants to come out in January, maybe. No problem. I booked the ticket. I ended up booking a PHX-SJU run, so I changed it by a week or so. Book new ticket, cancel old ticket. No problem. I often look at what a ticket costs to how many miles it cost. I had booked a FC ticket for my mom to go to Costa Rica for 60k miles. I found reasonably priced tickets on CO for about $800. I'd rather have the 60k miles than the $800, so I bought the ticket, and then canceled the award.
If you *ever* do a RTW reward, I think you'd either spend a lot of money in change fees, or would be wise to get up to Plat at least for the year you're doing the reward.