Basic vs WGA+ When Using Points?
 

I always bought WGA fares when using points, And if points needed went down, I was able to "change" flight and rebook the same flight and get the points difference back. Is this still the case with BASIC fares? Or do I need to go with WGA+?

Basic must be canceled and rebooked to capture the savings.

Extra step of canceling will be annoying, But whatever. Just to be clear that means there is no "real" penalty when using points when booking BASIC except for the extra step? I know for BASIC when buying with money, the travel funds expire in 6months if you cancel.

There should be no adverse consequences, but we have no reports yet.

Ok. Thanks! I will be book BASIC with points. And will report back if the points required go down before my flight.

Here's an interesting quirk - I booked a trip PHX-OAK close in on points a couple days ago, and the WGA+ was cheaper (13,500) than the Basic (14,000).

Reading between the lines, the $5.60 for tax will come back as a flight/$ credit and expire in 6 months from date of booking. That is the main difference I read between BASIC and the old WGA. I haven't tested it out yet. Anyone know if this is true?

Tax should always be refundable. Unless you are booking JetBlue, which never implemented tax refunds correctly.'

Or unless you paid California sales tax on a car battery core deposit.

OK, maybe it's possible...

This is almost certainly incorrect.

Never use a flight credit on a points booking anymore unless it's about to expire worthless. Other than that exception, always use a credit card. Never use a gift card either. This rule will always make your $5.60 refundable with no worry about funds expiration.

I've tested booking Basic fares with points. As long as you book the taxes with cash, the points are refundable to your account and the taxes to your form of payment. If you use a flight credit or gift card for the taxes, on cancelation, a credit is generated for that portion of the fare that adopts the 6-month expiration date. The CoC makes clear that you can refund cash-paid taxes back to your form of payment on points bookings, irrespective of fare type. As long as you don't need SDC or standby, booking Basic fares with points seems very logical and avoids short credit expiration situations.

Booking with points seems to be the best use of this Basic fare.

Issue is the redemptions have gotten noticeably more expensive relative to cash prices in a lot of cases.

Seems that they're still tinkering with the values of point redemptions (or their system has had glitches). I've found some good deals, though not in lockstep with cash prices as before. A couple of weeks back, even after they moved to this new model I was able to get some $39 cash price intra-CA flights at 1,359 points. Last year, I once paid 1,911 points for a $39 flight.

Earlier in May, I found a number of excellent point redemptions. It was when they had one of the 30% off codes. It was like some flights out in the August-October range were back to the old way of points redemptions (odd numbers like 1,359 points instead of the current round numbers like 2,000 points we mostly see now).

A few days after I booked, I went back to do some additional bookings, and everything had been fixed. Flights I booked for around 5k points were now 12k points- out in August-September. Cash price was unchanged, it was just the points price that went way up.

Great, thanks for the confirmation. Glad to be wrong here again was reading between the lines on what is not written.

Glad they will still refund to the CC for taxes.

Yeah there were some hot deals a few weeks ago. I bought two transcon round trips for 10k all-in WGA+ where the points redemption was sitting above 2 cents relative to the cash cost at time of booking.

I actually had that happen this past weekend and got clarification. I had a previous WTG fare that became BASIC after May 28. Prior to May 28, I had made a change to the flight to get back some points when the rate had gone down. When I went to cancel, the 5.60 was only allowed to go to a flight credit. The response was that once I made a change, that money became a flight credit and became non refundable. If you want to change to a reduced points fare, you must cancel and rebook in order to get the taxes back on CC if you cancel in the future. I argued that I made that original change under WTG fare rules but the “system” had it down as a changed flight and only allowed flight credit.

Southwest converted a WGA ticket to Basic because it was changed before Basic even existed? Got it.

Food for class action parasites. I look forward to my useless coupon settlement.

Recall the BS fare drink coupon class action suit some 10 years ago? I must have gotten at least 100 after I had slowed travel significantly. Actually cost me time & money to mail them away, many expired before I could due to the short date.

That's when AA was running a 5k promotion for many routes, including transcontinental routes. That promotion also ended on 5/28.

The refare has always made your cash portion nonrefundable pre-5/28. You always had to cancel and rebook new to keep the $5.60 refundable. When I refare points for infrequent travelers pre 5/28, I always cancel them and rebook so funds don't get stuck with them if they don't make the trip. I know I could do the WGA+ trick, but I rather not go through the extra steps.

This has not been my experience (pre 5/28). Most recent example - WGA for April 2025 trip, booked Sept 2024, refared Jan 2025, canceled April 2025; $5.60 refunded to credit card.

Same. This was the first time tax went to a credit. I always keep an eye out and change to lower fare with points if available. I have always had taxes refunded to card if it was changed and then canceled.

I also didn’t realize that any WGA fares I had prior to May 28 would turn into basic. I would have done wGA+ if I had known.

I must have changed the flight when capturing the refare to ruin the refundability or done something to mess it up then.