James from BNA
VR Jacket Guy
Not a good first experience with SW. In short: we're still in Cleveland. Flight was delayed, then delayed again, then canceled. Weather was certainly tricky, but no other flights were canceled that we could see. Then we heard (apparently just a rumor) that there was a bombing at the BWI airport ... all I see was a minor, short-term issue with an abandoned bag in a parking garage that was cleared quickly.
I've booked a replacement flight for tomorrow, but it does mess with our plans a bit. We'll see what we can salvage. I'll also note that I booked it while on extensive hold waiting for a CSR, and it listed at 11k more miles than today's flight was. I instead paid with cash in the form of a GC ... well, partly because I was afraid of losing the flight to some of the other displaced passengers from today, and I didn't have enough miles left (the canceled flight had not yet returned points to my account).
Anyway. 30 minutes on with a CSR finally (mostly on hold) to make sure our return flight did not get canceled. I paid $22 extra for Business Select only to get an A-02 boarding position. This didn't help my wife on the CP, who scored a middle-class B-47. I'll grab a window seat mid-front plane and try my bag in the middle seat for as long as I can.
So, we'll try again tomorrow.
Question: I have cash and I have "surplus" UR. Surplus means I have enough UR and United miles for a RT in business to China (or most other places; need to recalc with the new United prices). By current calcs I have 52k (corrected) UR to spare. Who would use their UR @ 1.6 cents per point? I figure this is pretty uninspiring. Anyone disagree?
I've burned tons of UR's each year for Southwest for the past 5 yrs or so. They have the most non-stops from Nashville and we always get double CP. Now that UR's are tougher to get cheap with the OD deval, I'm going to start using my Amex Plat with Southwest as preferred airline to book all my WN flights so I can get the 30% rebate. USB Flexperks grocery spend is also a good option.