Just a quick story from the "how nice would it be..." files:

In March my wife and I are heading down to Philly for a get together with friends that are coming from Jersey and DC and some other places around. We decided we'd fly down so we didn't have to make the 6.5 hour drive from MHT to PHL. Usually I'd take a US flight so I could get UA miles and because it goes nonstop from MHT to PHL. But we started looking at flight times and the US flights didn't really work for us. So I looked around and saw Southwest had some good flight times and was cheap. I usually avoid SW, but for an 1:15 flight, I don't really care what I fly. So we booked.

Two weeks later, one of the people we're getting together with informs us that he's being called away on business that weekend and said he knew we were flying in and probably couldn't change tickets without an expensive fee, but if we could, they could do the following or previous weekend. So I call Southwest to find out how much it would be to change and they look it up and say "Well the new tickets are $224 total and the tickets you have are $244 total, so you'd actually get a $20 refund". I said "really, no change fee?" And she said "nope, not on SW." She told me where to go on their website so I could do it myself and basically, if you buy two tickets on SW for $244, it's like you've just deposited $244 in a southwest bank. You can change that to any ticket you want so long as it's still the same two people going. I could decide, you know what, screw Philly, my wife and I are going to Vegas that weekend, it's $400 for us to get out there, so here's another $156 and we get tickets.

Anyway, having had to change flights once or twice and getting hit with the $100 change fee, I was lamenting how nice it would be if UA did this. I understand SW is a low cost airline without any frills and UA needs that revenue to have things like first class and entertainment and such. But it was so nice to be able to go on and be able to switch the flight without any worry about change fees and such--it's nice that SW recognizes that this is an easy operation that doesn't involve $100 worth of work for them to do so they don't charge for it.

This can work a lot of times to your advantage and I do agree that this is especially good if you plan a vacation a long time out. You can just buy the cheap seats knowing you can get the money back for future flights.

But you also need to consider that Southwest does not have same day standby. So if you want to catch an earlier flight and even if they have seats you have to pay the ticket price for the then going rate (usually the most expensive). I ended up paying a couple times the full rate just to get home 4 hours earlier.

I often book Southwest when I see that they have a very cheap fare (i.e., under $200 BWI-OAK) and I have doubts as to whether I will be able to go on the trip or not. I like knowing that I can cancel the trip and apply the funds to another one... I'm not in a position to pay the United full fare tickets just to waive change fees, even with the 1P bonus miles incentive.

One catch with the Southwest policy is that the original funds must be used on a flight *flown* (not purchased) within one year of the original purchase (not flight). I have gone on short weekend excursions (BWI-PVD can be under $50 R/T) to use up unused funds.

Personally, I'd pay an extra $10 or so per ticket to United just to have the ability to apply the funds to any other flight w/o the $100 change fee.

UA would probably lose a couple of thousand dollars in revenue from me per year if they dropped the change fee

Probably more than that from me. I constantly get dinged, and usually in �. It really adds up quickly.

Also keep in mind that can not stand by for an earlier flight on restricted WN fares unless you buy up to a higher fare.

However, if your flight is delayed, then you can stand by on any flights to any surrounding destinations (at least that was my experience). When I was a poor college student, I used to fly WN from Bay Area down to OC (OAK-SNA) a lot. There had been a few times where my flight was delayed for a couple of hours so I took the earlier flight to Ontario/Burbank/LAX instead. My parents weren't very happy having to drive longer but I got home earlier

Yes me too. I love change fees, especially on international flights. Weeee!

Yep. And sometimes that buy up is more than the original ticket.

Travelling a couple of years ago MCO-ORD, we got to the airport several hours early. When asked if we could get on the standby list (with no expectation of being guaranteed a seat) I was told that I'd have to cough up $150 for each of our tickets just to be able to get put on the standby list. The RT tickets were only $140 to begin with. Kind of disappointing considering the GA told us that all earlier flights were practically empty.

Decided to pass on this. Fortunately MCO isn't that bad an airport to hang out in.

I hear you on the standby thing, but I think this is the perfect situation to use southwest. We made these reservations in mid-January and knew that something could come up. It's just a weekend to get together with friends, so come Sunday, there'll be no need for me to feel like we need to get out any earlier so the option to go standby is almost a non-factor in this case. On a business trip where I'd finish my work early and want to get home, that's a different story. Ain't no southwest then!!

I use Southwest frequently to fly home from BWI when I have to change my flight dates. It's far cheaper than the $100 change fee and the current fare adjustment that I get from UA. I also use Southwest when I dont want to wait four and 1/2 hours between the the 5PM IAD-BDL flight and the next flight at 9:40 PM. Because I don't want to get SSSSed by the TSA, I 'll buy a round trip ticket, use the outgoing segment and get a refund for my ticket at the Southwest counter at BDL before I go to my car for the ride home.

Yes, this is what my self-employed friends and I call a nuisance fee. The actual work in performing whatever service doesn't nearly justify the amount of the fee; however, if you, the proprietor, only charged the "what-it's-worth" amount, there would be so many people wanting you to perform that service, that it distracts you from doing your other work. Therefore some business owners deliberately set a high price for some services, so as to price some, if not all, people out from requesting that service.

So....you bought a full fare ticket and it was flexible. You most certainly can do that on UA, the change fee only applies to cheap tickets, on SW the change fee just isnt fixed (at $100) its whatever the $ difference to full fare.

I didn't buy a full fare ticket. I bought internet specials--$39 each way or something like that. That's the most restricted ticket southwest has. When I wanted to switch, they were just going to charge me the difference between that ticket and the ticket I was switching to. Since the ticket I was switching to also had those internet fares available, they didn't charge me anything. A full fare ticket was like $202 each way.

I have also had SouthWest customer service (always US based, unlike UA...) more than willing to apply my unused southwest flight credit money towards the *internet special* fares. Can you imagine UA customer service allowing you to change your ticket to a web fare? I don't think so...