With Southwest opening it's summer 2022 dates next week, I need to figure out how we should plan to book these once they are open. If anyone has specific thoughts/comments about our situation and my tentative plan, I would greatly appreciate hearing them!
Our situation:
- 5 passengers (2 adults, 3 kids [none young enough to be a lap infant])
- Flying from PHL to ORD in mid-July. Since there are few nonstop flights each day, they seem to fill up quickly.
- Looks like tickets will likely be ~23,000 RR points roundtrip per passenger
- I have ~88,000 RR and ~67,000 UR
- P2 has ~100,000 UR and just a few RR at the moment
- We are hoping to get a SW CP for P2 (he was approved for a SW personal card in Nov and applied for a SW biz card a week or so ago, just submitted additional documentation yesterday, hoping for an approval soon). If he does get the CP, it won't be until January at the very earliest (probably not till Feb or March).
What I'm thinking we should do:
- Book three tickets using my RR for me and two of the kids (Wanna Get Away fares)
- Transfer 46,000 of P2's UR into P2's RR account, use P2's RR to book tickets for DH and the third kid (would Wanna Get Away fares be OK if I might cancel one of these if P2 gets his CP?)
- If P2 gets the CP, add third kid (booked on P2's RR) as the companion and cancel this ticket once the companion pass is in place (likely Feb/March). I'm thinking I might need to call customer service to do this since it's possible/likely the flight will already be full at this point?
- Pay for all the fees with one of our Sapphire Preferred cards for the travel protection.
Any concerns about this plan?
PS - I realize I've been asking a lot of questions, and whole-heartedly appreciate all the answers and advice I've been given. I'm very new to using CC points (and travel in general, honestly), so the advice on this board has really been invaluable. Thank you for the time everyone has taken to contribute to this board!