The answer to that headline is almost never in my book, but like all things….there are exceptions to the rule.  MrsMJonTravel and I are leaving for Dayton Sunday morning.  I won’t get into why on the blog, but we need to be there.  I priced flights on United from Dulles, and they wanted $1,218.00….each!  US Airways from DCA was a bit better….$700 dollars each.  Finally, I checked Southwest from BWI into Columbus (then drive to Dayton).  All that was available were fully refundable fares at $172.00 each way for the Anytime Fare and $185 for Business Select.  Either of those is a very reasonable price to pay for short notice travel.  Unfortunately, I didn’t book right then.  By the time it was apparent that we had to fly to Dayton, Southwest was completely sold out.  Even United, at the ridiculous price they were posting is now sold out for the dates and times we need.

Enter American Airlines.  Both MrsMJonTravel and I have a few miles in our accounts that we won’t likely use anytime soon, so I checked AAdvantage award availability.  There were no MilesAAver seats available, but AAnytime award space was there, so I snagged it.  Since I’m a Gold AAdvantage member, I do not have to pay the ridiculous short-notice award fee, but did have to pay it for MrsMJonTravel.  So..for $120.00, we are flying to Dayton with the exact dates and times we need.

If I could rewind the clock, I would have booked the refundable Southwest fare, and kept the miles.  But time can’t be rewound.  Other than driving (which I will not do), this was simply the best option for us, and I don’t regret using 50,000 miles each to get there.  There are times when it’s OK to burn miles on short flights, and I can’t think of a better reason than saving well over $1,000 dollars in this case.